mr_sifter - Slashdot User

Submission + - The curious case of SSD performance in OS X (bit-tech.net)

Submitted by mr_sifter on Thursday July 01, 2010 @05:40AM

mr_sifter writes: As we've seen from previous coverage, TRIM support is vital to help SSDs maintain performance over extended periods of time — while Microsoft and the SSD manufacturers have publicized its inclusion in Windows 7, Apple has been silent on whether OS X will support it. bit-tech decided to see how SSD performance in OS X is affected by extended use — and the results, at least with the Macbook Air, are startling. The drive doesn't seem to suffer very much at all, even after huge amounts of data have been written to it. Does OS X even need TRIM?

Submission + - AMD says Fusion CPU and GPU will ship this year (bit-tech.net)

Submitted by mr_sifter on Saturday May 15, 2010 @05:16AM

mr_sifter writes: Intel might have beaten AMD to the punch with a CPU featuring a built in GPU, but it relied on a relatively crude process of simply packaging two separate dies together. AMD's long-talked about Fusion product integrates both key components into one die, and the company is confident it will be out this year.

Submission + - Next gen Intel CPUs move to yet another socket (bit-tech.net)

Submitted by mr_sifter on Wednesday April 21, 2010 @05:52AM

mr_sifter writes: And this time, the socket is 1-pin different to the current LGA1156 socket Core i3, i5 and some i7s use. According to a leaked roadmap, next year we'll be saying hello to LGA1155. Sandy Bridge CPUs will be based on the current 32nm, second generation High-k metal gate manufacturing process. All LGA1155 CPUs will have integrated graphics built into the core instead of a separate chip. This is an upgrade from the current IGP, PCI Express controller and memory controller in Clarkdale CPUs that is manufactured on the older 45nm process in a separate die (but still slapped together the same package). This should improve performance, as all the controllers will be in one die, like existing LGA1366 CPUs.

Submission + - Fineprint says Game store owns your soul (bit-tech.net) 2

Submitted by mr_sifter on Thursday April 15, 2010 @06:20AM

mr_sifter writes: UK games retailer GameStation today revealed that it legally owns the souls of thousands of customers, thanks to a clause it secretly added to the online terms and conditions for its website. The "Immortal Soul Clause" was added as part of an attempt to highlight how few customers read the terms and conditions of an online sale. GameStation claims that 88 percent of customers did not read the clause, which gives legal ownership of the customer's soul over to the UK-based games retailer. The remaining 12 percent of customers however did notice the clause and clicked the relevant opt-out box, netting themselves a £5 GBP gift voucher in the process.

Submission + - The Gamebook writers who nearly invented the MMO (bit-tech.net)

Submitted by mr_sifter on Friday April 09, 2010 @05:58AM

mr_sifter writes: In the 1980s, gamebooks were all the rage, and most geeks have read through a Fighting Fantasy novel or two. You might even have heard of Fabled Lands, arguably the most ambitious gamebooks ever — it was planned as a series 12 books, each representing a different area of the world, and players could roam freely from book to book. It was completely non linear, and unless you died, there was no way to finish. In 1996, the authors, Dave Morris and Jamie Thompson, hooked up with game developer Eidos and started work on what would have been a ground breaking computer game version of their books — an MMO, in other words. Unfortunately, development hell awaited. This feature tells the story of the game that could have been WoW before Warcraft.

Submission + - Is console gaming dying? (bit-tech.net) 1

Submitted by mr_sifter on Monday December 14, 2009 @04:16AM

mr_sifter writes: PC gamers love to obsess over whether PC gaming is dying, but bit-tech thinks it's time to look at the other side and examine if console gaming is really as secure as publishers would have us believe. All three console manufacturers suffered from the recession — this year, Sony announced its first net loss in 14 years; a stunning ¥989.9bn, which includes record losses of ¥58.5bn in its gaming sector. Microsoft also announced its first loss since it went public in 1986 in the second quarter of this financial year, with a $31 million US loss coming straight from the Entertainment and Devices division – i.e those responsible for the Xbox 360. Not even Nintendo has escaped the financial plague either, with sales of the Wii dropping by 67 percent in the US, 60 percent in Japan and 47 percent in the rest of the world. In addition to reduced profitability, casual games and the rise of the iPhone further suggest the current model is on its last legs.

Vermont City Almost Encased In a 1-Mile Dome 456

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday November 09, 2009 @09:45AM from the yeah-it-could-happen dept.

destinyland writes "A Vermont city once proposed a one-mile dome over its 7,000 residents. (They paid $4 million a year in heating bills, and HUD seriously considered funding their proposal.) The city's architectural concept included supporting the Dome with air pressure slightly above atmospheric pressure. (Buckminster Fuller warned their biggest challenge would be keeping it from floating away...) There would be no more heating bills, fly-fishing all year, and no more snow shoveling. And to this day, the former city planner insists that 'Economically it's a slam dunk.'"

Xbox 360 Failure Rate Is 54.2% 607

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday August 20, 2009 @12:16PM from the that-seems-a-bit-high dept.

Colonel Korn writes "The Seattle PI Blog is reporting that a soon to be published Game Informer survey finally shows the failure rate of XBOX 360s: 54%! The survey also shows the rates of failure for the PS3 (11%) and Wii (7%). Impressively, only 4% of respondents said they wouldn't buy a new 360 because of hardware failures."

Submission + - The problems with porting games (bit-tech.net)

Submitted by

mr_sifter

on Tuesday August 18, 2009 @05:18AM

mr_sifter writes: "There's a large lexicon of monosyllabic, four-letter words for describing something you don't like — but only PC gamers use the word "port" with such a fervent degree of repulsion. Common complaints about console ports include meagre graphics options, dodgy third-person camera angles, poorly thought-out controls and sparsely distributed save points. In this feature, bit-tech.net talks to developers of games such as Dead Space, Red Faction and Tales of Monkey Island to find out why porting games between the three current consoles and the PC is so difficult. Radically different CPU, graphics and memory architectures play their part, as do the differences in control methods and the rules the Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo set about how games should work on their systems."

Submission + - The science of Folding@home (bit-tech.net)

Submitted by

mr_sifter

on Monday June 15, 2009 @05:59AM

mr_sifter writes: "As previously discussed, computers running Folding@home now contribute over 1 petaflop of processing power to research into protein folding, making Folding@home the most successful example yet of a distributed computing app. It's also at the forefront of GPGPU computing, with both Nvidia and ATI keen to push how well their graphics chips perfom when folding. So the technology is great, but what about the science? This feature looks at how the Folding project was developed, how it's helping researchers and the thorny question of how long it might be until the software running on your PC or PS3 actually produces real world results."

Submission + - Does professional gaming have a future? (bit-tech.net)

Submitted by

mr_sifter

on Friday April 10, 2009 @08:47AM

mr_sifter writes: "Three years ago, celebrity gamers such as Fatal1ty were bagging millions in prizes and TV channels were queuing up to broadcast games on TV. Professional gaming looked set for the big time. It never happened, and in the current economic crisis, sponsors and media organisations are cutting costs, resulting in the closure of many pro gaming competitions and a downscaling in prize money. This feature looks at whether pro gaming can bounce back, and whether it will always be a PC sport, or if console pro gaming is the future."

Submission + - How AI in Empire Total War and FEAR 2 works (bit-tech.net)

Submitted by

mr_sifter

on Thursday March 05, 2009 @12:16PM

mr_sifter writes: "The newly released Empire: Total War and F.E.A.R. 2 have both been praised for their excellent AI. In this feature Bit-Tech talks to the developers behind these games about how they handled the challenges of creating Empire's armies of thousands of AI soldiers and F.E.A.R. 2's aggressive teams of military operatives. The discussion also talks about how game AI is "smoke and mirrors" compared to research AI, and also looks at the difficulty of improving the quality of game AI."

Submission + - Input lag, or why faster isn't always better (bit-tech.net)

Submitted by

mr_sifter

on Friday February 06, 2009 @06:05AM

mr_sifter writes: "LCD monitor manufacturers have constantly pushed panel response times down with overdrive technology, which increases the voltage to force the liquid crystals to change colour states faster. Sadly, there are some side effects such as input lag and inverse ghosting associated with this — although the manufacturers themselves are very quiet about this. This feature (with video), looks at the problem in detail."

Nintendo DSi Software Will Be Region Locked 148

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @08:30PM from the don't-import dept.

aliquis writes with news that software made for the recently announced Nintendo DSi will be region-locked. Nintendo's reasoning is that the DSi "embeds net communication functionality within itself and we are intending to provide net services specifically tailored for each region." It's also been discovered that accounts with the DSi's online store won't be linked with the Wii store, so points for one won't work with the other. Nintendo has stated that they don't intend for digital distribution to replace retail sales. We discussed the DSi's announcement last week.

Overclocked Memory Breaks Core i7 CPUs 267

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @04:41PM from the chip-has-potential dept.

arcticstoat writes "Overclockers looking to bolster their new Nehalem CPUs with overclocked memory may be disappointed. Intel is telling motherboard manufacturers not to encourage people to push the voltage of their DIMMs beyond 1.65V, as anything higher could damage the CPU. This will come as a blow to owners of enthusiast memory, such as Corsair's 2.133MHz DDR3 Dominator RAM, which needs 2V to run at its full speed with 9-9-9-24 timings."

Slashdot Top Deals