Sure, monitors were expensive, and even the 19" was second hand (and still in active use by someone else). Monitors have almost always been the ultimate limiting factor, as they are now more often than not.

I've got an 11 year old 3840x2400 monitor at work that can manage a stellar 41Hz if you wire in all 4 dvi leads... I guess that monitor probably exceeds the limits of a graphics card, unless you count an X2 or eyefinity 6.

All I can say is lucky you. When I said 95, I was being entirely fair, that was still what I had in 97. I think I must have been slumming it lower down the pecking order than you, as even later on when I'd upgraded, I didn't have monitors of the calibre you're talking about. Think more like this, but 15").

http://www.computerdisplays.co.uk/17%20inch%20monitors/iiyama_1402.htm

In 2000 I upgraded to a 19" monitor driven by a matrox G200 (from a machine I bought in late 98). But that card only had a maximum resolution of 1920x1200@70Hz, so I still couldn't have hit your figure. I splashed out and bought a replacement graphics card in 2001 (GeForce 2 MX), that *still couldn't hit the higher than 2048 x 1536 / 75.0 Hz (but to be honest, the 19" monitor I was using wasn't sensible to use about 1600x1200). Right, so that's up to 2005 and I've still not owned anything that can hit what you're listing.

Right, then what did I own... ATI Radeon 9600 XT. Still maxes out at 2048 x 1536 / 60.0 Hz. Next... not sure. I had a ATI X1300. That could do 2048x1536@75Hz. 2007 I upgraded that to an nVidia 7950 GT. Done it, I've finally hit something I've owned that could drive a monitor at 2048x1536@85Hz, but by then I'd got rid of my CRT, so I'm back down to 60Hz again...

I'm not saying you *couldn't* do these things, but I'm definitely saying that *I* couldn't, and I don't think I was anywhere near slumming it at the bottom, I just wasn't cutting edge.

Yes I was talking 90s. I'd guess the median refresh in the late 90s was either 72 of 75Hz. I seem to recall the RAMDAC on my ATI Mach 64 1MB graphics card could only hit 85 at 800x600, and that was 1995 I had that.

I just have a different idea of not so long ago. I was thinking pre-PC era, although nobody was thinking about 60fps Wing Commander. But go further forward and read a review of a 3dfx voodoo card, which revolutionised PC gaming, and they'll talk about smooth 30fps gaming: http://tech.mit.edu/V117/N49/threedfx.49a.html

That's 1997 and we're still only talking 16bit colour, so I still think you're lightly rewriting history.

Roll forwards to 2000 and the geforce 256 was the next real revolution.

  http://m.tomshardware.com/reviews/leadtek-winfast-geforce-256-ddr-review,157-4.html

They describe 31fps as reasonable, and they're still benchmarking with 16bit colour. Indeed later in that article they refer to 30fps as "the magical barrier".

Also, you must be joking about running windowed for more performance. Dropping resolution, sure, but not windowed. voodoo and voodoo 2 couldn't even do windowed 3d.

No. Given lots of LCD screens top out at 60fps, and most CRTs were less than 85hz, this simply isn't true. Yes refresh rates of LCDs have gone up, but have you checked what yours is running at? Mine's at 60hz.

24fps with a panned shot is plain jerky *and* blurry.

Bare minimum changes over time. 15fps was considered smooth not so long ago, then 30fps was the quake era gold standard, now 60fps. I don't really know where it will usefully end. Clearly it matters a lot more with some game types.

I guess there could be an element of uncanny valley going on there. Low fidelity leaves you wiggle room for your brain to fill in, but maybe with higher fidelity you realise how crap the actors are?

I really don't get why people are so attached to 24fps. Can you imagine this with computer games?

You will, but because of differing flame speeds, not because of the octane rating which is unrelated to flame speed. You can merrily run BP Ultimate 102 RON in a modern engine.

It's a spectrum! The EM spectrum is quite similar...

You can't expect people at the mild end to show the same symptoms and behaviours as those as the severe end. Let's be honest here, we're all on the autistic spectrum somewhere, and I can easily believe the slashdot crowd are skewed towards one end from the population mean.

Seriously, flamebait? You really can't disagree with the freetards here!

Sticking with your drug analogy, I think in many ways you have a supplier and a dealer. The street dealers aren't who you care about most, but they're still up to no good. This guy wasn't providing random information he was provided targeted and tailored information about drugs, right up to the brink of providing them. He was deemed by a judge (not a jury) to have broken UK law.

The problem , as with drugs, if the suppliers are good enough, you still end up having to deal with the dealers as part of your strategy.

And you're quite right, I am free to wait for copyright to expire, although given current terms, that basically means selecting different content, which is fine.

No, you've lost me. He linked to content which was illegal (and nobody I believe is arguing that point) and made a pile of money from advertising (~£150k) by providing people easy access to this illegal content. Sorry, but if people want to make movies and charge money for it, you've a simple moral choice. Pay the money to watch a film you end up thinking is shit, or you don't.

Do you really think you have a moral right to access all content produced without charge? I'm not siding with the MPAA in claiming this guy cost them billions of dollars, but he *did* make money based on someone else's work. Presumably he made considerably less than the market value of what he was providing access to.

The market needs to decide that this content isn't worth what the studio charges for it, and react by not watching it.

He was definitely morally guilty as he's a chancer who thought he could make a bundle of cash by skirting the law. He made money with advertising by hosting links to pirated content, where he provided facilities for the people with the pirated content to provide and update the links, and took a more custodial role than a simple hands off search engine. He shouldn't be extradited, but he should be charged in the uk, and fined sufficiently that he hasn't made a profit out of this venture (which netted him hundreds of thousands of pounds I believe).

I don't believe he directly hosted any content.