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| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20699 |  Labotomizer (423) Jul 28, 2008 - 07:51 am
| # New compute shader technology that lays the groundwork for the GPU to be used for more than just 3D graphics, so that developers can take advantage of the graphics card as a parallel processor
# Multi-threaded resource handling that will allow games to better take advantage of multi-core machines
Those two items alone will make DX11 very popular I think. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20705 | Labotomizer (423) Jul 28, 2008 - 07:50 am
| | It's the whole point of the device. As it stands now the Wiimote can sense acceleration, even a minor amount, and uses infrared to see how you're pointing it at the screen. That's all it can really do. My understanding is the Motion Plus gives it full info about exactly how the remote is positioned at all times, regardless of movement. This will pay off in things like sword fighting, where you'll be able to have your movements translate exactly to the screen. This way there won't be gestures to trigger moves, how you move your wiimote is how an object on the screen will move. It can tell the exact positioning of your hand. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20705 | Labotomizer (423) Jul 25, 2008 - 05:02 pm
| | Pricing hasn't been announced and it will come with the new Wii Sports, which will probably be 30-40 with the accessory. The MotionPlus itself probably won't top $20. If it gives true 1 to 1 movement for games it would be nice to have. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20702 | Labotomizer (423) Jul 23, 2008 - 05:13 pm
| They really need 3rd party to pick up this slack. Nintendo won't release a Zelda or Mario game without working on it for years. At least not a SM64/G level of a Mario game. It would be nice to see them get better 3rd party support. If I were Nintendo I'd beat the other guys with a new console next year. By then making a $250 console with 360/PS3 graphics wouldn't be hard to do and most people will have made the move to HD TVs. They probably won't but here's to hoping.
I wasn't expecting any major games from Nintendo this year for hardcore gamers. It'll be at least next year before that happens, they've already thrown out all the big names. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20689 | Labotomizer (423) Jul 22, 2008 - 06:28 pm
| | That's why I bought it. It may not get a lot of use but when it does it's a hit, either with my friends or my wife or just myself in some cases. I like the diversity over the standard PC/360/PS3 games. However, if I didn't have a nice PC I'd probably get a 360 over the Wii. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20689 | Labotomizer (423) Jul 19, 2008 - 04:47 pm
| | You pretty much answered your own question. To be perfectly honest my Wii doesn't see a whole lot of use, I use my PC quite a bit more as I don't have a PS3 or 360. The Wii is doing so well because it appeals to the people who think spending 4-5 hours in a week playing a video game is a lot of time. I can blow thru that in an afternoon easily. The PS3, 360 and PC games are designed for those type of gamers, traditional gamers, those of us who are used to devoting long stretches of time to a game we've been anticipating. Nintendo is focusing on the people who spend less time playing them. It's working quite well for them but it's also whey so many "gamers" don't understand why it's doing so well. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20661 | Labotomizer (423) Jul 12, 2008 - 08:41 am » Edited on Jul 12, 2008 - 08:44 am
| I have no problem with them offering lower tier, download capped service. Like $20/month for 5GB down and 768k. That would be plenty for a lot of people. I think 29.99 is too high. But there has to be a point where you go unlimited because it's just not feasible. I'd pay 60/month for 15-20MB down and unlimited usage.
edit - hadn't run a speed test in a while, apparently I am getting 20 MB down already for 50/month. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20650 | Labotomizer (423) Jul 11, 2008 - 10:05 am
| You should blame nVidia, as something like 30% of all Vista crashes in the first year were directly caused by nVidia drivers, 12% by ATI and then it trickles down. Only 5-10% can be attributed to issues with Vista directly.
As for it making things more stable, there's no doubt it did. nVidia had 2 years with Vista BEFORE it went to RTM and they still had terrible drivers. ATI drivers didn't perform as well but were far more stable earlier than nVidia. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20650 | Labotomizer (423) Jul 11, 2008 - 10:02 am
| The rumors are that Midori is actually in incubation, which means it's on the track to becoming a retail release. It is based on Singularity. Two very interesting things. One is it's microkernel based, which on old hardware is bad but on modern hardware it's extremely good. Each application, each driver, each everything loads a microkernel. That means all systems are independent of each other. If one thing crashes everything else is completely unaffected and that operating system restarts. Singularity, and probably Midori, is capable of running on anything, from a Wii to a super computer. It's a completely, built from scratch OS. It will probably be what brings WinFS to the desktops as it's probably going to make it's debut before long in their new Cloud OS server software they're working on.
The other really cool thing is Singularity is open source and there's a good chance Midori will be as well. Which means the kernel itself will be open to developers to tweak for their individual applications and drivers. MS will offer services and software over and above, such as the GUI, at a price but the microkernel itself will most likely be FOSS. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20650 | Labotomizer (423) Jul 11, 2008 - 09:57 am
| | You're probably right on the XFI. I remember reading that someone else wrote a driver for it that Creative was going to sue but it was so much better than Creative's driver and the community backlash against them so bad they backed off. Do some google searching, that's probably your issue. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20650 | Labotomizer (423) Jul 10, 2008 - 03:01 pm
| People have been begging MS for years to sever backwards compatibility for security and stability's sake. MS finally does that and everyone gets pissed. If you've run Vista for any length of time you'll see they kept up the security and stability part of their bargain by giving up that support. It's a good trade off in my opinion, one I've been wanting for a while.
If you think this is bad, wait until Midori. That could be very, very interesting. It'll run parallel with Windows for many years though, but will eventually replace it like NT did with 9x. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20650 | Labotomizer (423) Jul 10, 2008 - 02:56 pm » Edited on Jul 10, 2008 - 02:57 pm
| I'm not exactly sure how you managed to get your system on that setup to be slower under Vista unless XP was highly optimized. If you don't actively maintain your computer, like 95% of the population, Vista over a few months will outperform XP hands down. Your computer always being defragged being a huge advantage all by itself. edit - Vista always seems to speed up over time if you don't load excessive crap on your computer. If you only ran Vista for a few days or even a week or 2, you probably didn't see how fast it can be once it's optimized to your use.
I'm sure you've heard the whole DX10 requires Vista due to architectural changes thing. I suppose they could be lying, but if that were the case I'd expect it wouldn't have been so much different to write drivers for Vista. It's the new driver model and memory changes that are required for DX10. To backport that to XP would be a lot of work on a technical level and incredibly stupid on a business level for an OS you're phasing out.
I'm looking forward to DX11. DX8 wasn't as big of a deal as 7 or 9. DX11 will probably end up being a pretty popular one for quite some time like DX9. Flag this | Edit this post |
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