Why PCs are no good for gaming any more

Proof of the pudding...

http://www.it247.com/Product/28-RB145AT*23ABU/HP_L2045w_flat_panel_display_T FT_201.htm

If you claim your £50 cash back and can reclaim the VAT, you're looking at 20" of widescreen goodness for approx £100.

Steve

Subject: XNA bods talk DirectX 11+

MS and their Vole allies best be careful or they will blow their own legs off. I switched from gaming PCs to consoles because of the never ending (expensive) upgrades required for PC gaming.

Quote, "4x Multi-Sampling AA will be minimum for 10.1". MS is doing a good job at killing off open GL and they may up DX requirements too fast and lose support from the PC gaming area because of upgrade requirements. The vast majority of PC gamers buy a cheep Dell or Gateway with underpowered gaming capability and never upgrade them. The also keep those PCs for many years. Look at it this way, Joe Smoe who has been playing PC games buys a new game for his cheap Dell that he just bought. The game runs like crap because it is just to bloated along with the OS so he picks up his console controller instead.

If this happens too many times to Joe his lose of faith in the PC games will be complete.

I will keep my Mac and own both the 360 and PS3 for half the price of a gaming PC would cost with no upgrade worries for the life of that console.

Mass Effect for the 360 looks sweet and can't wait for FF XIII. Plus they will look great on my 40" 1080P TV.

Have a great day,
Glenn

Subject: Halo 2?

If PC users of halo 2 can go head to head with xbox users surely they'd have an edge with the mouse+keyboard combo? That means all PC players would be considered hacking frocktards unless MS seriously dumb down the sensitivity of the PC controls :)

Max

Subject: Carbon Targets

The Priminister really doesnt have to worry about it. Once peak oil kicks in carbon emissions will be the least of our problems.

Simon

Subject: Hacker pirate scum

"Microsoft has nothing to do with your problems in China. The problem is entirely that you eejits use pirated software. Linux IS available to you, in dozens of flavours, you DO have options. Why bother spreading your useless FUD? If there were no hacker and pirate scum, there would be no security issues. Anon"

So "Anon" has firsthand, or at least reliable secondhand knowledge of what precisely is and isn't available to Chinese punters? It's my understanding that the state controls the flow of information with something of an iron glove; freely accessible foreign servers kitted with Linux images doesn't sound like something they'd allow to go unblocked. The whole "free" and "open" jazz seems a tad too... free and open for them.

"Anon" should bother to read the majority of security related stories of the past some while, too, wherein the corporatization of hacking for the purposes of data mining has become the real threat in zombifying (your) box. I, too, field a bizarre number of port scans coming from Cathay, but it's clearly not the fault, per sé, of the users; rather it's a symptom of Beijing oppression and Redmond greeed (yes, Virginia, they could float a $20 copy of dedicated Mandarin Vista if they bleedin' felt like it, and probably add another decimal to Willy's net worth in the process).

I think that Dr. Venture said it best: "Why is it every time I need to get somewhere, we get waylaid by jackassery?"

regards,
mjh

Subject: XNA bods talk DirectX 11+

So to sum it up, many things they should have added to dx9 already will be available in dx11+.. maybe.

How clever and advanced and forward thinking, but ok, forward thinking is not something that's done anymore, and it's appreciated by many that's it's not done anymore, by politicians for instance.

W

Subject: Tom Murray

I damn near fell out of my chair laughing while I read Tom's missive. That man is wasting his time chasing hippies. He should be writing for the INQ!

Tom, I am behind your right to club baby seals and hippies all day long! BTW, could you do in a few of the ultra-far-left Hollywood crowd while you're at it?

Rich Wargo

Subject: Asus sound cards

Hi there

You know Asus is rather infamous for having driver issues with a wide range of it's products. Go have a look at how many older (like even just 6 months ago) boards are missing Vista drivers. Creative needs competition to smarten it up, but it's kind of funny that someone even more in trouble for lacking drivers is the one to do it.

HP, Canon, Asus are all on my idiots list for not being able to provide working software (drivers and hardware utilities) for Vista and Vista 64 given they've had 6 months or more to be working on them.

Creative is no peach, that's for sure. But it feels like "out of the frying pan and into the fire" when I look at Asus delivering sound products. They will definitely have drivers on day 1, but on day 100, you'll get the cold shoulder and be forgotten.

Food for thought,
Dave Fey

Subject: Patents

Granted, I understand that it's wrong to blatently steal someone's technology verbatim. And I'm sure there are tons of cross patented products that haven't been discovered yet.

Say you decide to make a program from an idea you have, whether it be for a large corporation or small business. You may find that it's the first of it's kind and throw it in to sell. When you design and publish the product, there is always a possibility that it's out there already. But, you do it regardless.

Why?

Not only does it take YEARS to finalize a patent, but the system in which patents are built on is SO shitty that it would basically take YEARS to find out whether or not it's actually existant. In the meantime, other people are making patents like wildfire and if you DID make something original, you'll be fooked by the time you realize that it actually is... or WAS, before you started looking.

Now, my guess is that a company that makes small apps to code, patent, then move on to the next idea, is a BIT more likely to find their code in larger applications than the large corporation is of finding theirs. It's like talking to someone on the phone, and telling them you want to meet when you're in the empire state building and their at a house in Jersey. The chances of them finding the empire state building are probably a bit easier and better than the other way around.

With all this said, I'm not saying that they shouldn't give royalties to the company for using their technology. I'm saying that Companies can't automatically be made out to be a bad guy or "copycat" when patent infringement occurs, considering they HAVE to patent or push the product out and pay the prices later in case it exists.

Companies like Microsoft, Cisco, Adobe and so forth, produce an unGodly amount of patents and code every year. The fact that a handful of those have actually been found as someone else's technology is not a surprise at all.

There should be other penalties for those found guilty of copying ideas code for code, and for those who show signs of actually researching the companies they steal from, but that's a different story.

Mataroo

Subject: winterpeg

As someone who has lived in both Winnipeg and Toronto I have the following comparisons to make.

Winnipeg is cold, but it's a DRY cold. If you bundle up properly you can stay out for hours (yes, five or six people actually do this by choice!) whereas in Toronto, it doesn't matter how much you bundle up, within half an hour you'll be damp and freezing.

There are so many mosquitos that it's easier if you just ignore them. You will eventually become immune and a bite won't itch for more than a minute. Or, if you're in a sporting mood, you can hunt them down blindfolded. In Toronto, the mosquitos are a quarter of the size, don't make any sound until they're landing in your ear. Bites last a week, probably because of all the polutants the mosquito absorbed as a larva in a sludgy Toronto puddle.

Also, common sense was invented in Winnipeg by Ukranian immigrants.

cheers,
Juan Garbanzo Bean

That's enough Canada/Winnipeg correspondence now, I think. The Letterman. µ