Hi Guys,
BBBG [Big bad Bill G] wants to 1/ Rule the World, or 2/ Own the World, or 3/ At least dictate how you use and what you use on your computer.
The power requirements for Vista are such that I can't imagine anyone actually giving in to the dictat except to use Linux instead and write really powerful programs to emulate BBBG. Then of course, there are people out there with more plastic than grey matter who will spend the ever increasing amounts of dosh BBBG wants. And there'll always be 'pooter' builders keen to provide the necessary hardware.
Personally, to run Quark and PhotoShop - which is all I want to do really - it is all overkill and I'll stick to 'doze 2K. Of course, it is the gaming fraternity who need the blistering power that BBBG is tapping into. Problem is of course, BBBG makes a pretty point and press desktop full of apparent usability while Linux won't let brick brains in! I must say that even (to my wife's intense annoyance) a dedicated box for Linux has (or would have if I had any) caused hair pulling and revision of Anglo Saxon usage. I have been watching the thread as to how little you really need to run a minimum Linux distro - and the little is in fact quite large. Mind you, Solitaire in Linux is much prettier than 'doze!
Cheers,
Bob Dove.
On Sat, May 20, 2006 at 09:37:20AM +0100, Bob Dove wrote:
it is all overkill and I'll stick to 'doze 2K. Of course, it is the gaming fraternity who need the blistering power that BBBG is tapping into. Problem
I'm not so certain of that tbh, as most people who want to play games now just buy consoles don't they? Only the real nutters who have lots of money play games on PC's now. This is why Microsoft released the Xbox and Xbox 360. I've pretty much ditched PC gaming entirely as it's far too expensive to keep up with the constant hardware upgrade cycle, and I think I'm going to stick with gaming consoles. My PS2 has lasted fairly well considering I got it the week of launch in the UK although it cost me 300 quid I've had it for 5 1/2 years now and it's still not outdated as there is a constant stream of new titles for the platform which I reckon will be in production for some years yet (and the hardware is likely to be on sale for much longer yet as Sony only just stopped producing the original Playstation console in March, and that was released 12 years ago in Japan).
I found it quite strange this week when people were reacting to the proposed 425 quid launch price of the PS3 saying how high it is but when you consider a pretty basic gaming PC will set you back at least double that, and that'd be for something medium powered, you'd be looking at over a grand for a good gaming machine and then having to spend ~350 quid a year on upgrading the damn thing. To me 425 quid sounds like a bargain if it allows you to play the latest games for the next 6 years or so. At the price you pay to play PC games you could just buy an Xbox 360 now, and a PS3 when that's released and an Nintendo "Wii" when that's released and at least you'd not be spending money on upgrades for a good few years yet.
Thanks Adam
On Saturday 20 May 2006 10:14, Adam Bower wrote:
On Sat, May 20, 2006 at 09:37:20AM +0100, Bob Dove wrote:
it is all overkill and I'll stick to 'doze 2K. Of course, it is the gaming fraternity who need the blistering power that BBBG is tapping into. Problem
I'm not so certain of that tbh, as most people who want to play games now just buy consoles don't they? Only the real nutters who have lots of money play games on PC's now. This is why Microsoft released the Xbox and Xbox 360. I've pretty much ditched PC gaming entirely as it's far too expensive to keep up with the constant hardware upgrade cycle, and I think I'm going to stick with gaming consoles.
You're not wrong there! Still struggling to keep up with PC gaming over here, and to do so with the extra requirements of doing it through wine.
Trouble is, there's lots you can't do on a console at the moment, including but not limited to PC-quality FPS titles (console games use weighted crosshairs, proximity deceleration and suchlike to compensate for the 10-thumbs nature of controllers, and this tends to spoil the game even when you do use a keyboard and mouse), RPG games (mustn't....mention....recent console RPG guis.), and the most important thing, the only way to make and run custom content, or to make and run Free games on a console is to try and run it as a PC itself.
As soon as these little issues are pegged, I'll be happy to stop being expected to buy a new <insert computer part here> every 3 months.
On Saturday 20 May 2006 12:38, Brett Parker wrote:
On Sat, May 20, 2006 at 10:27:30AM +0100, Ted Harding Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk wrote:
However, no doubt there are some linux applications for which even No 1 would be overloaded -- though I'd be curious to know what they are!
Ahh, you don't run openoffice.org, then (either that, or you have the patience of a saint ;). Even on fairly beefy hardware OO.o takes more time to load than I like - which is why I generally stick to abiword and gnumeric when those evil Word and Excel documents come in... anything that I write myself will (most likely) be in either (some breed of) XHTML or LaTeX, or, now, ReStructured Text. Spreadsheets are mostly avoidable, that's what god gave us database servers and scripting languages for, right? :)
I find that OOo sticks in the craw when discussing migration with people.
On a purely theoretical level yeah, it's got all the bells and whistles, but I just can't in good conscience say "yep, that's what I use", because it's molasses-fast right now.
The gnome/kde word processors would see far more time on my desktop if I were into that kind of app. Of course it's emacs all the way in reality.
If it didn't *still* have stability issues for me, I'd have to have the excellent AbiWord right at the top of my list for that sort of end-user type word processor, if only for being fast and having a concise and lightweight feature set (luggers who know me to be a lover of emacs, kde, etc. may guffaw there ;) ), and your comments on spreadsheets are about on the money for me.
In a more general sense, I think people should be made aware of the fact that running a rich graphical desktop does have a cost in terms of memory and suchlike, even if that cost is nowhere near the slice that windows XP takes, or the stiff penalties XP imposes on functionality.
If people are ever given misleading ideas about that, they're bound to be disappointed, which is not good.
Ten
On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 12:35:43AM +0100, Ten wrote:
Trouble is, there's lots you can't do on a console at the moment, including but not limited to PC-quality FPS titles (console games use weighted crosshairs, proximity deceleration and suchlike to compensate for the 10-thumbs nature of controllers, and this tends to spoil the game even when you do use a keyboard and mouse), RPG games (mustn't....mention....recent console RPG guis.), and the most important thing, the only way to make and run custom content, or to make and run Free games on a console is to try and run it as a PC itself.
The only thing is, you say there's lots you can't do on a console, but examples seem limited to FPS type games and RPG games. Since I started playing more console games I've discovered such delights as "we love katamari" & "destroy all humans" not to mention my old faves such as "wipeout fusion" & "dancing stage megamix" I just honestly can't see many of these kinds of genres ever existing for the PC which seems to be limited to flight sims, strategy/god game, RPG and FPS type games.
Although, in the Linux world there does seem to be a fair few more quirky and original games, mainly because many of them are not commercial so there is no demand to make money. Also, the only PC games on my shelf I can't play under Linux are civilization (III & IV) (but the Linux world is graced with the excellent FreeCiv) & Half Life 2 (annoyingly they make a server that runs on Linux for multiplayer games. Quite a few publishers still make versions of their games to play under Linux and given how few hours
Also, about FreeCIV, I think Brett was talking about having a multiplayer game today, co-ordinated via the irc channel. (Usually when we've played multiplayer FreeCiv before we all hang out in irc while playing the game). So if anyone is interested perhaps they should stop by and find out if anything is happening.
( http://www.freeciv.org/index.php/Freeciv )
Thanks Adam
On Sunday 21 May 2006 09:01, Adam Bower wrote:
On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 12:35:43AM +0100, Ten wrote:
Trouble is, there's lots you can't do on a console at the moment, including but not limited to PC-quality FPS titles (console games use weighted crosshairs, proximity deceleration and suchlike to compensate for the 10-thumbs nature of controllers, and this tends to spoil the game even when you do use a keyboard and mouse), RPG games (mustn't....mention....recent console RPG guis.), and the most important thing, the only way to make and run custom content, or to make and run Free games on a console is to try and run it as a PC itself.
The only thing is, you say there's lots you can't do on a console, but examples seem limited to FPS type games and RPG games. Since I started playing more console games I've discovered such delights as "we love katamari" & "destroy all humans" not to mention my old faves such as "wipeout fusion" & "dancing stage megamix" I just honestly can't see many of these kinds of genres ever existing for the PC which seems to be limited to flight sims, strategy/god game, RPG and FPS type games.
Oh, they're not entirely limited to those, I just didn't want to rattle on endlessly.
I've also absolutely *loved* my games consoles, with the possible exception of the gamecube (I never really got on with the games and the controller), and they've hosted some of my all-time classics (the Gran Turismo series, the MGS series, Resident Evil II, Street Fighter II, TimeSplitters etc.), but there are still not-so-little aspects of gaming on a PC that don't yet have equivalents on a console.
If nothing else, there's nothing to replace the eclectic experience you can put together for yourself on a PC at any point - and frankly you can always lay your hands on a game for free.
All of this is fairly useful to me at the moment of course, since I'm running without 3D acceleration due to unavoidable technical issues, and will be able to run games console games and 2D RPGs in order to replace my usual fare.
Although, in the Linux world there does seem to be a fair few more quirky and original games, mainly because many of them are not commercial so there is no demand to make money. Also, the only PC games on my shelf I can't play under Linux are civilization (III & IV) (but the Linux world is graced with the excellent FreeCiv) & Half Life 2 (annoyingly they make a server that runs on Linux for multiplayer games. Quite a few publishers still make versions of their games to play under Linux and given how few hours
Shame you cut off short here. Yes, the HL2 MP servers are a bit weird. Bugs go unfixed on hl2ds for extended periods of time and performance seems to be inferior performance-wise on to the same machine running the windows version (based on anecdotal evidence from a friend who runs windows specifically for the app despite running linux web servers).
The thing that really surprised me is how different Quake 4 is after you've played it a decent amount, to the first impression you get.
Also, about FreeCIV, I think Brett was talking about having a multiplayer game today, co-ordinated via the irc channel. (Usually when we've played multiplayer FreeCiv before we all hang out in irc while playing the game). So if anyone is interested perhaps they should stop by and find out if anything is happening.
Ooh, last time I played in one of those it was great fun - I'd definitely be up for that, notwithstanding the fact that I play FreeCiv like an absolute duffer. :)
Regards,
Ten
On 5/20/06, Adam Bower adam@thebowery.co.uk wrote:
I found it quite strange this week when people were reacting to the proposed 425 quid launch price of the PS3 saying how high it is
I image one factor of such a "high" price is to reduce initial demand until manufacturing catches up! People were re-selling Xbox360s for easy profit on ebay to impatient suckers.
Tim.
On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 09:24:06AM +0100, Tim Green wrote:
On 5/20/06, Adam Bower adam@thebowery.co.uk wrote:
I found it quite strange this week when people were reacting to the proposed 425 quid launch price of the PS3 saying how high it is
I image one factor of such a "high" price is to reduce initial demand until manufacturing catches up! People were re-selling Xbox360s for easy profit on ebay to impatient suckers.
When PS2 came out I was tempted to just sell mine as I was one of the people who pre-ordered and got it for 300 quid, I could have easily doubled my money or better, that was despite there being pretty much no good games available at launch and that stayed the case for a few months after release too.
Adam
On 20-May-06 Bob Dove wrote:
Hi Guys,
BBBG [Big bad Bill G] wants to 1/ Rule the World, or 2/ Own the World, or 3/ At least dictate how you use and what you use on your computer.
The power requirements for Vista are such that I can't imagine anyone actually giving in to the dictat except to use Linux instead and write really powerful programs to emulate BBBG. Then of course, there are people out there with more plastic than grey matter who will spend the ever increasing amounts of dosh BBBG wants. And there'll always be 'pooter' builders keen to provide the necessary hardware.
Personally, to run Quark and PhotoShop - which is all I want to do really - it is all overkill and I'll stick to 'doze 2K. Of course, it is the gaming fraternity who need the blistering power that BBBG is tapping into. Problem is of course, BBBG makes a pretty point and press desktop full of apparent usability while Linux won't let brick brains in! I must say that even (to my wife's intense annoyance) a dedicated box for Linux has (or would have if I had any) caused hair pulling and revision of Anglo Saxon usage. I have been watching the thread as to how little you really need to run a minimum Linux distro - and the little is in fact quite large. Mind you, Solitaire in Linux is much prettier than 'doze!
Good points, Bob, and nicely put! I'd like to comment on your final one though -- "how little you really need to run a minimum Linux distro - and the little is in fact quite large".
It depends what you want to use it for! Some applications these days are really heavy, and you need heavy kit to run them well.
But for much of my usage (and I do a lot of different things) I've been getting on well with quite modest kit, for the most part.
Ranging from my first Linux back in 1992 (no X then!) installed on 25MB of HDD with 2MB RAM, to my current "stable" which has
1. Desktop: 733 MHz CPU, 512 MB RAM, 40 GB HD space 2. Laptop: 366 MHz CPU, 128 MB RAM, 6 GB HD space 3. Desktop: 75 MHz CPU, 64 MB RAM, 6 GB HD space 4. Laptop: 486 DX/4 CPU, 18 MB RAM, 256 MB HD space
I've not often felt pressed for resources. Even No 4, which runs X quite happily and can browse with Netscape (ancient version), can be used for a variety of applications provided the particular demands of a job are not too big. I can also for instance run the GIMP on Nos 1, 2 and 3.
The only one which comes near the "Vista" spec is No 1, yet for linux usage it zips and very rarely shows signs of load. And with VMWare I can run Win98 when needed, at the same time as anything Linux-wise.
However, no doubt there are some linux applications for which even No 1 would be overloaded -- though I'd be curious to know what they are!
Best wishes, Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 20-May-06 Time: 10:27:27 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On Saturday 20 May 2006 10:27, Ted Harding wrote:
However, no doubt there are some linux applications for which even No 1 would be overloaded -- though I'd be curious to know what they are!
A quick look round at the machines in front of me or in the next room..
* 1800+ Athlon XP, 768M RAM, 250Gig disk * 1GHz Nehemia, 256M RAM 400Gig (across 3 disks) * 1GHz Celeron, 256M RAM, 10Gig disk * 450MHz PII, 256M RAM, 4.3Gig disk * 433MHz Celeron, 128M RAM, 9.1Gig SCSI * 433MHz Celeron, 256M RAM, 4.3Gig disk * 400MHz PowerPC, 256M RAM, 10Gig disk
Most of the above running Debian of one flavour or another.. There are a few other boxes in the stable, but they don't get turned on very often.
Regards, Paul.
On Sat, May 20, 2006 at 10:27:30AM +0100, Ted Harding Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk wrote:
However, no doubt there are some linux applications for which even No 1 would be overloaded -- though I'd be curious to know what they are!
Ahh, you don't run openoffice.org, then (either that, or you have the patience of a saint ;). Even on fairly beefy hardware OO.o takes more time to load than I like - which is why I generally stick to abiword and gnumeric when those evil Word and Excel documents come in... anything that I write myself will (most likely) be in either (some breed of) XHTML or LaTeX, or, now, ReStructured Text. Spreadsheets are mostly avoidable, that's what god gave us database servers and scripting languages for, right? :)
Cheers, Brett.
On Sat, 2006-05-20 at 09:37 +0100, Bob Dove wrote:
The power requirements for Vista are such that I can't imagine anyone actually giving in to the dictat except to use Linux instead and write really powerful programs to emulate BBBG. Then of course, there are people out there with more plastic than grey matter who will spend the ever increasing amounts of dosh BBBG wants. And there'll always be 'pooter' builders keen to provide the necessary hardware.
To a degree I think the increasing hardware requirements point is moot. Forget the technical figures and look at the costs involved.
My first x86 box cost me £1000 and ran DOS, Windows 3 or GEM Desktop and apart from simple WP/Spreadsheet stuff and the odd sierra game was pretty much incapable of anything else.
My first x86 portable (I'd hesitate to call it a laptop even though it was clamshell laptop format) was mains only and ran Win311 on a mono (amber plasma) screen, new price for that was circa £2500.
A £450 desktop PC now would fulfil the Vista minimum requirements enough to be pretty usable. That machine is capable of 3D graphics, Multimedia you name it. Also nowadays if you are not too bothered about ultimate portability you don't have to add that much to get a pretty capable notebook.
Add to that, nobody in their right mind is going to install Vista on an existing machine. The licensing costs to do so are too prohibitive and the benefits too small. So actually the hardware requirements are irrelevant because Vista will run (if the requirements are accurate) on any desktop PC you would build today.
Even my trusty Amiga A1200 ran to nearly 4 figures once I had bought all the accessories I wanted...and that was designed to be a home system !
On Sat, May 20, 2006 at 02:59:11PM +0100, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
A £450 desktop PC now would fulfil the Vista minimum requirements enough to be pretty usable. That machine is capable of 3D graphics, Multimedia you name it. Also nowadays if you are not too bothered about ultimate portability you don't have to add that much to get a pretty capable notebook.
That's very true, most people will not actually upgrade to Vista apart from a few nerds. People will end up acquiring it when they get rid of their existing PC as people do tend to upgrade every 3 years or so when things like hard-disks fail and they can't run some of the latest software and/or they get an extra nasty virus that wipes their disk.
Thanks Adam
-
Adam Bower -
Bob Dove -
Brett Parker -
Paul -
Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk -
Ten -
Tim Green -
Wayne Stallwood