How Nvidia and ATI conspire to rip us off

Subject: MS getting booed in brum

"It's the Man United," affect suggested Bolton fan Buxton. Brits love to knock a winner.

Apart from the bad writing of that quote (which i'll forgive ;) ) i simply don't think this is true. We (as British or perhaps more correctly English in this case) knock those who are big headed and seen to be abusing their station. The Man U effect comes from their brief history as being top dog and letting it go to their heads as well as all the "flip-flopping" supporters out there who rallied to their cause. Ever hear the one about 80% of Man U's fans being outside the UK? Or the one about no "true" mancunian supporting the reds? (Of course it's closer to 50/50 in my experience)

Anyway, i digress. MS is acting like the big man on campus (to use a US phrase) and that is why people like to knock them down. They need to be taught some humility and at the moment the EU certainly seems to be between a rock and hard place trying to do so...

Kind regards,
James.

Subject: Hobbyist OS?

To the Editor,

Though I agree with Mr. Thomas that there is little reason for Dell to support Linux on the consumer desktop, and also that Linux is not ready for a variety of reasons for deployment in many markets currently occupied by M$ Windows, I believe he does a disservice to dismiss Linux as an "overrated, hobbyist OS".

His statement that Dell will go out of business if it puts any real money into Linux is simply provably untrue. Dell has put quite a bit of money into Linux and done well versus the old guard Unix vendors by supporting Linux on its workstation and server lines. If he means to restrict his statement to Dell's consumer lines, then I would agree in part, since Dell is financially vulnerable now and shouldn't lose focus. However, there is the possibility that Linux may be popular in markets which are not already fully committed to Windows, such as China, Brazil, parts of India and Africa, and it may help Dell to get a head start by getting its feet wet in consumer support for Linux.

Regarding the charge of being "overrated and hobbyist": because an OS may not be suitable for the average consumer does not mean it is not suitable for other equally important uses. Yahoo! runs its Oracle databases om Linux, Google's search cluster runs on Linux, eBay's payment system middleware runs on Linux, GE's MRI and CT scanner systems run on Linux, and so on. Linux has become the dominant OS in scientific computing: CERN where parts of the World Wide Web were born, NOAA simulations of weather and climate, the IBM Blue gene computers used in genome sequencing, the National Cancer Institute's Bioinformatics Grid. Many of these projects will have major effects on human lives in the coming years, of at least an equal magnitude as the latest Vista Aero 3D graphics and DirectX 10.

Respectfully,

D. Bay

Subject: yore krap revue

Jus cuz you obviously get stuff free, duznt meen you can slag of the best system on the planit!!

Dell

Subject: From Barcelona

Just a quick note about the title and a comment.

You are as likely to see bullfighting in Barcelona as if you stay at home. This is a castillian tradition, not a catalan one. To make an example is like going to London, to see an Scottish skirt. Catalonia has even approved resolutions against bullfighting.

Regarding the new, this is getting as fast changing as it is with graphics cards. And this is really something that benefits us, costumers, at least in principle.

The other questions rising are: What real benefits will this new CPUs bring to our computers? Does everybody need a supercomputer at home? Will someone ever use so much processing power?

Roger

Subject: even if it is marketed up with Nvidia's TWIMTBP scheme

Now "that" is one of the reasons The Inq is annoyingly becoming a part of my life, the numerous "you either recognize it instantly, or u just don't bother" expressions.

The Ink: The Way It's Meant To Be Posted.

Greetings from Cairo!

El Banss

Subject: STALKER foxes CrossFire

FUDo, is that you?

Whoever wrote that article certainly knows as much about graphics as FUDo.

Yes, AA does not work in Stalker when using the advanced lighting effects but no, this has nothing to do with HDR. The lack of AA is because the graphic does use deferred shading, a lighting technique which does not allow AA in DX9.

This is a limitation of DX9 will be the same for the upcoming R600, there is nothing AMD can do against this except using a DX10 path which allow AA and deferred shadowing at the same time.

So please, just stop your obvious dumb nvidia bashing if you have no idea what you are talking about.

James

Subject: Catalyst 7.3 released

I've played with the latest linux driver and I will say it is a good improvement and the performance is noticiably better than before. I have a radeon 9600 mobility with 64MB ram and wow CPU usage is much lower than before.

For those who are considering trying the new driver I would suggest it.

Dan Bastianello

Subject: Vodafone Cutting Off Phones

Hello there. I'm Steff and a fond reader of The Inq.

Just thought I'd mention a similar experience we had with Vodafone. We had the same problem a little while back with my grandmothers mobile. She has cancer, and though my uncle is always there taking care of her she had a mobile in case of an emergency, and luckily we decided to check the status of the mobile, only to find it wouldn't register with the network.

Personally I'm going to stick with my O2 PAYG. :)

Steff

Subject: green crayon

As a committed penguin-head, previous correspondent and protagonist may I just say that I agree with your reasoning but disagree with your conclusions (or vice versa or something).

The fifth freedom is the right to get off on claiming big solutions to small problems. (My Dell required i915 and it worked out of the openSUSE box) but that the souped-up Mk3 Escort crowd have found Linux is hardly a hanging offence, is it?

Gerry

Subject: in Bangalore

Dear Mr Mike Magee,

Now that you are here, you may know that it is Bengalooru now.

Regards

BNS Bhat

Subject: Bags

"This is our third year here," said the sales manager for Listan GMBH, handing out the beer and fags. "We don't have the time-wasters this year. It's encouraging that the vistors are positive.

What a combo, beer and fags...lol

Rikee

Subject: STALKER foxes CrossFire

i don't understand what you mean.Maybe are u defending Ati for the image quality?? Ati lies with crossfire,it's not stalker that foxes crossfire.If an international producer says that crossfire works with all 3d direct3d games,it has to work...stop.otherwise Ati has to say that it doesn't work for all the direct3d titles,simply.

It doesn't work on:
Gothic 3
S.t.a.l.k.e.r.
Condemned criminal origins
Raibow six Vegas
Splinter cell double agent(it's already very bad alone)
..now u continue the list 'cause next time i buy a nvidia gpu ;) the problem is that ati never support nvidia oriented games and we,gamers,are not interested for their competition! we only play games and spend money! double useless money!!!

thanks for your attention.bye amoza

Subject: Vodaphone SIMs

Oooh, look. Their UK operation has responded to your complaint and made the term they didn't tell you about *bold*:

We can suspend (i.e. bar) or terminate the provision of the Services (in whole or in part) without telling you (although we will, where possible, inform you that action may be taken):

* if we are aware or have reason to believe that your Mobile Equipment or the Services or number/password used in relation to the Services is/are being used in an unauthorised, unlawful, improper or fraudulent way or for criminal activities (or has been previously, regardless of whether this is with your consent or not) or *if you choose not to use the Service for a period of 180 days* (.Use of this service. means (i) making any chargeable outbound calls (excluding calls to 191, see your price plan for charges). (ii) any topping up of your account);

(Sorry not to give you a link to it. It took all of 20 seconds to find, plus server dawdling, but there doesn't seem to be any permissible way to link to it. Not very nice of them.)

That brings them in line with every other pre-paid phone account I've seen. Funny they didn't say it before, but I read it in the paper so it must be true.

Jeff

Subject: Intel Opteron Article

About the Intel tent having the Opteron box - that is kind of nice to hear an Intel rep saying that they have competition - the AMD spinner was spot on. I don't care if Intel is faster than my AMD stuff, but it's nice to at least know they know we're out here. ;)

Thanks for the article.

Ben

Subject: Linux + Dell = money

I would guess that your inbox is already flooding with hatemail from Linux users. And there is a reason for that. You are spreading FUD, Saying Dell will not earn on this.

As a matter of fact I think almost all Linux users will buy Dell if they need a built PC from now on. That is a lot (millions) of new customers.

As for myself, I just can't wait to get my hands on a Dell Latitude or Inspiron with preinstalled Linux. And I don't care what distro it is. Because if Dell supports one distro, it is likely to work with all distros, especially since Dell wants to use open source drivers.

Also, many non-Linux users will try Linux with Dell PCs. My guess is that Dell can cut at least $100 of the price if they choose a free distro like Ubuntu (the most popular one).

Dell can easily get Linux expertise enough to sell PCs with Linux. They can just get some gurus from the distro maker they choose (canonical for Ubuntu) over to get the configuration right. As they said the communities will be the support, so dell saves alot in that area too.

Dell will make millions on selling PCs with Linux if they do it the right way (I am sure they will). and yes, my email is genuine...

Thomas

Subject: Yahoo

A classic case of Hutber's Law = Improvement means deterioration ! One batch of messages has come thru 76 times today...what a mucking fuddle

Charlie

Subject: Catalyst 7.3 released

Starting with 7.2's new re-write of the control panel the CCC suddenly misses an option to set hotkeys for many things like 3D gamma, I hear the 7.3 has the same lack of functionality.

Perhaps instead of just reading out the always not-shown-in-real-life speedboosts you could mention the negative aspects too. (I'm not too serious about that suggestion, you just announce the release I know, it's not an article)

Anyway, I'm still stuck with 7.1 or can try 7.3 without CCC and using a 3rd party application like tray tools. So I'm not too impressed with ATInayAMD efforts in regards to re-writing the CCC, not to mention the complaints I read about it on forums.

W

Subject: Intel Penryn set to despoil pretty streets of AMD Barcelona

Oh by the way, I particularly liked these deeply philosophical explanations for the non-techie hacks from Intel's press release - "Thanks to our high-k metal transistor invention, think of 820 million more power efficient light bulbs going on and off at light-speeds.", and, "Imagine a shower with two powerful water shower heads, when one shower head is turned off, the other has increased water pressure" - uuuh, what kind of dimwits are mingling among IT journos these days, that need this kind of explaining?

That would be for the benefit of the Toms Hardware staff Neb ... pretty dim bulbs over there ... or possibly for Ed at Overclockers.

They run Intel sponsored websites ... they are paid to nod.

Maybe they need a shower?

Darren

Subject: Nasty article, cheers.

Writing a nasty article whilst shoving the bill at M$ is an excellent idea. Perhaps an addition to this sort of operation would be double sarcasm. It is a cryptic method in which you completely ridicule someone without them knowing even though they read what you write. The key component would not doubt be the use of double, and for the witty triple, meaning sentences or words. The beauty of double sarcasm is that if you really think it over, sounds like a double negative, but it's really a positive! (har har)

Why would this be of any use to you? quite simply put, if big time CEOs do not know the difference between 5 megahertz and five megabits you can write nasty things about them while all the time thye think you are on their side! So you could potentially win a microsoft gold partner sticker as a trophy and solid proof of their stupidity.

Uhm... just a thought. (these come to me at random, and at most I don't bother to type them...but who can resist double sarcasm??)

w00tseaker

Subject: Welcome to Bangalore

Hey Mike!

Welcome to Bangalore. Good to see you having fun. We will drink to your health. Feel free to drop a line if I can help you with anything. I am a loyal reader of The Inq, btw.

Cheers!
Sriranjan Bose

Subject: Agreed

Imagine troubleshooting an internet connection problem in Linux:

1. is your network cable plugged in?
2. ok goto start run...i mean applications terminal...
3. alright type ipconfig...i mean ifconfig...
There's barely any configuration wizards in Linux and the ones that exist suck. Trying to get Aunty Mabel to type in hundreds of lines of console commands to troubleshoot even the simplest (and there are no "simple" problems in Linux) will be a hugely time consuming and just overall waste of time.

I don't think they shouldn't offer Linux, some people might just want to use their old license and not pay for a new one.

I think they should have it installed and setup 100% properly and just offer hardware support, no software though.

Loser