This is how nVidia always manages to stay on top: assumption.

I don't know why, but people always assume that nVidia parts are at the least equal, and for the most part better than ATi. Granted they have been in the past, but anyone savvy enough to know about graphics cards should also know how much things can change with every next generation.

I've heard people actually say "It's safe to say that the HD 3800 was pretty much a failure". That had to be one of the dumbest comments I've ever heard from a so-called "true gamer".

I think everyone here is missing the point. This is less about how accurate IBM's claims are, and more about the fact a company as large as IBM with a name that established was actually willing to publicly say it. That by itself is a major benifit for Linux.

This is all about momentum, marketing, and market share. I mean seriously, we act as if Microsoft has never made erroneous or speculative claims in the spirit of customer coercion. This is how business works.

FWIW, the Simpsons live in Springfield, Kentucky. They've dropped numerous hints about it, but during the Behind the Scenes parody episode, they flat out told you. It was so blatant that 99% of the people didn't even hear it.

The fact that you disagree even further illustrates my point about how little PC gamers actually know about PC gaming. After my 4800 SE went out, I replaced it with a 6600 GT, and aside from the ability to raise from medium to high quality, the only difference were extra "effects". The same thing happened with FarCry - added a few fish in the water, but otherwise the game was more than playable with that card.

It's really a case of "you don't know what you're missing..."

The lack of PC games has very little to do with architecture changes. The perception that you always have to upgrade when a new generation of games arrive is little more than computer machismo, and just because you can't max everything out doesn't mean you need a new PC. I played Doom 3 perfectly fine on a GeForce Ti 4800 SE, and I played Crysis rather enjoyably on a Radeon HD 3870, even though everything was set to medium. The problem is most PC gamers' ego can't handle the not being able to play with "everything maxed out", so they feel the need to upgrade.

The reason consoles are gaining so much ground is no one wants to waste money on the PC. Why spend millions of dollars on developing a title when 25% of the user base is going to pirate it anyways? They can make the same game console only, and almost all hardcore gamers will purchase an XBox 360 for the games they're missing on the PC. I hate to finally admit it, but until we fully embrace an active activation system like steam to counteract piracy, PC gaming isn't going anywhere.

No genius, it's not a sound business decision. 1) It affected more than a few people, as a lot of people were still partial to Windows 2000 at the time. 2) It wasn't a business decision at all really, because as the guy below you stated, almost all Windows XP drivers worked on Windows 2000. They just deliberately blocked them from running on Windows 2000. The drivers already worked, but were blocked because you weren't running the OS THEY wanted you to run.

Even though almost every XP driver worked for 2000, the installer for said drivers blocked the installation with the message "Your operating system is not supported". Hence my irritation.

A few years back, a friend of mine needed me to format his Vaio desktop. He lost his restore disk, and he wasn't overly fond of XP anyways because of the speed difference. Everything installed smoothly, but I couldn't get a few key things working (i.e. sound). Why? Because not only did Sony not support Windows 2000, they refused to release any specs whatsoever on it's hardware. The hardware was mostly from major manufacturers, but it came directly from them to Sony, with no specs available whatsoever, thus no third party drivers (ones that worked anyways). This may not sound like that big of a deal in 2009, but at the time, no other major vendor had this problem - which wouldn't even have been a problem at all had they simply "unblocked" Windows 2000 support. After a few days of searching high and low, I just gave up and bought a copy of Windows XP off of eBay.

So basically, the most proprietary hardware vendor out decides against allowing you to run an OS that they never officially supported anyways? Seriously, is this that big of a shock?

Assuming you're half the Linux fanatic you're coming off as, I'm sure you already know that no one has more open documentation than AMD/ATI. Hell their open documentation and support is pretty much keeping them alive on Linux, seeing how their drivers are still inferior to those of nvidia. So because they didn't have an entire article promising to do what they're already doing, you're complaining?

Almost everyone I know that jumped on Blu Ray earlier did so because there was already on in their PS3. This, people, is exactly why one company shouldn't make across the board products. You can't make players, computers, game systems, and THEN create an industry standard. A proprietary standard maybe, but an industry standard hell no.

In an age where virtually every computer made in the last 4-5 years came with a cd burner, some people actually still point the finger at downloads for the decline in album sales.

(Not even mentioning the lack of creativity and innovation today's radio has...)

Playstation.3.Emulator.

(or decent PS2 emulation for that fact...)

I don't understand why gamers have this die hard loyalty/borderline bias for Intel. Granted, they are better than AMD hands down - they're a bit of an overkill. Unless you're an extreme gamer, you'll never actually need the extra power, and to recommend the Q8400 over the Phenom II X4 940 is odd considering they're usually priced within $5 of each other.

I build a new computer almost exactly a year ago. 4 Gigs of DDR2 800 Low Latency memory, 7200 RPM SATA II hard drive with 32mb cache, an Athlon X2 5000 BE (I just bumped the multiplier from 13 to 15 to get it at 3ghz) and a HD 3870. With the exception of the CPU, everything is is running at stock speeds. These are the games I play:

Call of Duty: World at War
Fallout 3
Race Driver: Grid
NBA 2K9
Drakensang

I was sure my computer would be sluggish, but it runs all these games just fine with excellent graphics at a 1680x1050 resolution. The point? At the time of my building, all of the mentioned games were (for the most part) considered "current generation", and my CPU was lumped into the scrap heap with the "only if you have to" parts. When I actually started playing games, I soon realized that my performance was exactly what people said I wouldn't achieve.

And exactly how to you account for all the users who don't have internet access? There are certain parts of the world where net access is either unobtainable, or just too expensive. Most of Africa, certain parts of New Zealand, etc...
In addition to that, a lot of people who use Linux don't even know they're using it. The same old "I switched my mom over and she didn't even know it. I just changed Mozilla to identify as IE 6 WinXP"

It's funny you should say that, because I was multitabbing at the time of writing. I know you should never humor an AC, but why not...

What do you have in your make.conf

How much ram do you have? I have 4GB DDR2. Do you use integrated graphics, or do you have a graphics card? I have an HD 3870. If you do have a graphics card, what drivers do you use? I use proprietary fglrx. I would ask what Desktop Environment you use, but the results were pretty much the same on both.

I don't know what your installation feels like, by my system is fast as shit under Gentoo. (and no, I'm not a fanboy. In fact, I'm very critical of the distro.)