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| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=18913 |  Major Shtupping (142) Dec 26, 2007 - 07:15 pm
| "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
5 threads are nothing.
Threads can be either time-sliced or multi-processor threaded. Currently, my quad core with firefox and acrobat open has between 745-752 threads open with 1% CPU usage.
Don't believe me? Check your own machine. Open your task mangler and click on the performance tab. It lists the amount of threads your pc is currently processing. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17616 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 28, 2007 - 12:46 pm
| This is an odd time to post this non-committal article. It's right on the cusp of the release of DX10's poster-child Crysis.
If DX10 looks no different or runs too slow on it, then there would be no compelling reason at all. And since you keep previewing all parts of Crysis, it seems as if you know the answer already.
Personally when I bought my DX10 card, there weren't ANY DX10 games out yet, and seeing as it was a new OS, DX revision, and GPU there was every possibility that the DX10 performance could suck.
So why did I buy it? Easy -- the DX9 performance. The card would allow me to crank the graphics settings to 11 and play at 19x12 on just about any game. The DX10 future compatibility was a minor selling point.
If you compare the performance of top of the line DX9 only cards against these DX10cards, the DX10 cards are the only choice.
The article's title is "Is DX10 Really Worth It?" though, and with the cureent games the easy answer is "Does it make my game play choppy, because otherwise, why not?" Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17598 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 27, 2007 - 06:52 am
| I'm betting my $5 on the black box pricing on Steam being announced after the games go officially on sale.
Their plan is to upsell the orange to everyone possible, and many people wouldn't buy it if there was a hint of a cheaper set.
DiRT and Overlord can hold me another 2 weeks or so. That Codemasters company certainly has been making a bunch of good games. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17572 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 26, 2007 - 01:58 am
| This is the most unexpected and interesting news I've heard in about 6 months.
The graphics industry becoming a 3 horse race and on the outside of possibility 4 if Intel jumps in.
The most fascinating possibility would be a PS3 graphics mode that would make PS3 ports trivial (and seems to me to be the most obvious reason for this sony creation). Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17535 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 24, 2007 - 04:51 am » Edited on Sep 24, 2007 - 04:55 am
| Personally, I like and use Vista64. That being said, I am really really happy with MS's decision.
This "downgrade" only applies to Vista Business and Ulitmate only. After all the patching, the only real problem left with Vista is playing nice on a network with XP.
Since that's what businesses have, and aren't going to upgrade ALL their machines any time soon, purchasing a new machine that only had Vista Business became problematic. They couldn't get valid serials (since they didn't have Enterprise licenses) for XP so any downgrade they did before this was illegal.
Now my clients can be legally compliant and happy.
Besides most businesses are buying underpowered machines as they run office just fine for most workers and Vista puts the hurt on lower memoried machines.
Also businesses won't have to support multiple OS's. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17534 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 24, 2007 - 04:38 am
| I don't know what you were expecting, as they've called it a stand alone expansion from the beginning.
"Stand alone expansion" translates into using the same engine and code. So except for some different weapons, maps, and enemies, it should be almost exactly the same.
It's been like that since Doom. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17418 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 20, 2007 - 12:51 am
| I do not know why people always buy the "price increase or get in-game ads" rationale.
Companies spew this line to sugar coat something that they know their customers do not want. It's called "positive spin"
Any MBA would tell you that the in-game ads are a separate revenue stream. Just like comic books, animated series, toys, movies etc...
Would you believe the line: "Would you pay $10 more or go see our crappy Wing Commander movie?"
Everyone who says they'd vote Neither is right because the two aren't an either or situation.
Lord Orion, you are 100% right with your comment about it subsidizing crappy games. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17420 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 16, 2007 - 07:43 pm
| I never heard of McRae before Wednesday, as I'm not a fan of car racing. But I heard DiRT was good so I picked it up and played it ALL weekend, laughing my butt off at my and my best friend's driving and loving the game (a first for car racing games).
I feel for his family, especially for his wife.
Luckily for gamers though, it shouldn't have anything to do with future titles, as games shouldn't need celebrity endorsement to succeed.
Did ANYONE say "Oh well, John Madden put his name on this, so it HAS to be good?" Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17396 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 15, 2007 - 08:06 pm
| You are making several assumptions...
1) That pushing the rendering to the client side has trivial benefits.
2) The server still has to keep track of all those states and force all that information through the network.
Why is this the case? Currently when an object is destroyed (lets say a crate), the parts go flying, land and disappear. They can't affect anything, so why keep that load on the server side? Since the crate parts can't damage someone else standing next to the crate, why can't the processing all be done on each client? Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17413 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 14, 2007 - 06:51 pm
| I am surprised and saddened to hear this.
This tech was looking much better than Ageia until now. It all hinges on whether Intel bought it because they thought investment would eventually help them sell more CPUs, or more likely they want to take it away from AMD or make it run worse.
This will eventually marginalize it and help us to all need to eventually invest in Ageia.
Unless Microsoft becomes the savior and incorporates their own physics API into DX10.
You heard it here first... Microsoft would have the chance to be the good guys for once. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17409 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 14, 2007 - 01:24 pm
| Ah but there it is. If kids have access to remotes that act like toy guns, then parents actually have to spend time with their kids teaching them not to Wiizap people.
This way, they can just protest a little before the product comes out and go back to ignoring their kids education.
Its the same thing with sex. The preferred plan is to teach kids "Just Say NO". That way you don't have to teach them anything about what they are saying NO to. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17396 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 14, 2007 - 01:19 pm » Edited on Sep 14, 2007 - 01:27 pm
| 30-40% won't be before 10 years or more at the current Vista adoption rate.
I disagree with that statement because it is almost impossible to buy a consumer PC without Vista. So almost every new PC sold this year and onwards will be Vista.
Small businesses and home businesses are just as screwed. Remember it is only ENTERPRISE CLASS licences that can get XP for their new machines. And for every corporate drone who bangs away on an XP PC all day, he goes home and uses his personal PC (stuck with Vista).
30-40% market penetration in 2 years on the outside. That's why it's called a Monopoly. Good or Bad, we are stuck with it. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17396 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 14, 2007 - 09:29 am
| Oh I certainly hope neither MS nor EA buy Crytek. They've done just fine on their own (except in marketing the far cry engine - because no one licensed it). I was just commenting on the fact that MS usually scoops up the best thing to push their product.
In June of 2000 people were talking about Halo the way they talk about Crysis. MS bought the company and all of a sudden it went from a PC exclusive to an XBox exclusive, with the PC version coming out 2 years later as a poor XBox port even though the game was originally developed on and for the PC.
Luckily MS has kept their big fat fingers out of Crysis. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17396 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 14, 2007 - 09:22 am
| and then in a year or two, that 2-3% is now 30-40% as the tech works its way down to the mid and low end.
Every new video card introduced this year and going forward will be DX10 compatible, and they are already in the $100 range.
It's just like NASCAR racing. How many people can afford a racing car? They are in the $2 million range I'm told. Not counting upkeep and crew. Yet all the car companies develop tech for the racers, and eventually you get anti-lock brakes on your car. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17345 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 13, 2007 - 02:50 pm
| If it helps you any, I just had a stick of my Dominator TWIN2X2048-9136C5D cause my machine to quit POSTing (and I don't even OC), and 1GB of RAM makes Vista very very angry.
I also use the monitor to watch all my TV on, so if you consider throwing in your TV budget, the monitor upgrade is worth it.
Well, I can't argue against using a high and midrange system for review because they could both be done simultaneously (until Bioshock's DRM takes over the industry) and not really cost the reviewer much more time.
The problem is practicality. There almost certainly is no FS Testing labs. When an article is assigned to a writer, it is probably also decided by what hardware he has access to test it on. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17345 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 13, 2007 - 02:49 pm
| I am a professional sys admin so some of the gear saves me time when work bleeds into my home life. The price then becomes worth it.
Is my system worth buying to game, especially online? Heck no, very little of it helps (but dude, ya gotta go widescreen. It does help.) I still get net lag, and all the detail is distracting when you need to focus on situational awareness in CS. But then again, while wandering through Cyrodiil or Rapture, I certainly was enjoying the scenery.
And also, MS Word runs at the same speed on both our machines. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17340 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 12, 2007 - 09:40 pm
| The big problem with Vista is that Microsoft shut down the upgrade treadmill for too long, and people are seeing little reason to get back on.
Unfortunately for MS, 2-3 years ago, people started realizing (especially businesses) that their hardware was "finally good enough". The slowest machine sold out of Best Buy today runs MS Word fast enough to do real-time spell check, so newer hardware upgrades don't really gain any productivity.
Now, what drives the high end market is gaming and video editing. Very few people actually video edit. That's why this site has tons of advertizers each wanting to charge extra for their special something.
Vista even tried to capitalize on it. Luckily Games for Windows was done apathetically (going console only really benefits MS in the end), most gamers like EAX (and see no reason to waste CPU power on audio), DX10 has been pretty pathetic so far (ironically possibly due to game companies not wanting to switch to it because porting back to consoles non-DX10 is trickier), and most importantly Windows Ultimate costs more than a year of WoW with nothing to show for it.
I am currently running Vista 64 but then I am a security freak (and its the only reason I do so). Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17345 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 12, 2007 - 09:15 pm
| I am playing the demo at 1920x1200 with my 8800GTX and QX6700 which is a good match at that res. It plays nice and fluidly at all times with everything cranked to 11 and 30 online opponents.
Since you want all testing to top out at 1280x1024, what would we learn by finding out that it runs at 245fps (I'm making the number up)?
Or, no insult to you, are you also suggesting that we stick to the $150 part price limit you set on your monitor? So the review system would top out at a Raptor, 1GB RAM (2GB if value RAM), ATI2600 or nVidia 8600 and an AMD X2 5600 or Intel E6600.
Well that review would tell me less about my system that this high end review tells you about yours.
If a high end machine plays it crappy, you are fuxxored. Unless you are willing to give it that special NES simulating DX7 loving. if it plays it decently you have a chance for it to play nice on yours because there is probably some settings that will work well.
Now me, on the other hand, reading a review on an average machine, well that tells me nothing about my system, because if it plays like crap, my machine could still run it very well, and if it plays well on the average system, it might still play like crap once you turn on all the graphic goodness (like just about every current DX10 game).
The benchmark is easier to reproduce if they crank everything to the max and see where it breaks.
If you do have a problem with this type of review, www.HardOCP.com might be more to your liking, as their reviews do it backwards, and report playable settings for decent frame rates as opposed to this method. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17342 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 11, 2007 - 10:18 pm
| I agree with you 100%. If I knew the game was good, I'd jump on the $149.
I refuse to play ANY game with a monthly fee, especially one you have to buy first.
But Hellgate might suck and I'd be out serious money. Luckily its set to be released Oct 31 so I'll have some time to decide. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17339 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 11, 2007 - 10:09 pm
| Yeah it SOUNDS good. But the problem is that for some reason, Valve wants to push their HL2 and HL2 Ep1 numbers at our expense.
Thanks to steam, they will know exactly how many people are willing to throw away money to rebuy games they already own.
I find owning 4 copies of the original star wars trilogy horrible and wasteful, I don't want to see game companies start that crap too.
Even though I would love to play TF2 and HL2 Ep2, I am going to wait for the black box price and try and vote with my $$$. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=17328 | Major Shtupping (142) Sep 10, 2007 - 09:05 pm
| Hey Doc, take it easy. It sounds like Jordan is on your side.
He said that prison guards are crazies who shouldn't enjoy tazering inmates.
Unless of course, you are angry because he said inmates shouldn't get tv? um... you lose your privileges in prison. tv isn't a right, it's a privilege. My parents used to revoke MY tv privileges for things far far less than anything that will get you incarcerated. That was called "good parenting". Or maybe I should go back and sue them for violating my civil rights?
I think it was Dennis Leary who said that we should get rid of the weight sets in prisons and give them all the cigs and fast food they want. I'd even throw in all the pot they wanted too... It would certainly end the prison riots. Flag this | Edit this post |
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