Radeon 5870 is a monster
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Re: Radeon 5870 is a monster
I actually know a non-geeky teenaged girl who quickly fell in love with Ubuntu when it came bundled on her Netbook. This was back before Windows 7 though.
Re: Radeon 5870 is a monster
Guyyysss...this is an ATI vs Nvidia fanboy flamewar, not a Sauce vs Windows fanboy flamewar! Get your own thread!
Re: Radeon 5870 is a monster
Ati vs nvidia is no fun. Winders vs lamix is more fun
Re: Radeon 5870 is a monster
They're the same argument. The most common argument I see against ATI is that their drivers suck. When I ask for detail, someone will either say "well 11 years ago..." or "they don't work well with Linux."
The first argument is easy to destroy. You see, 11 years ago, buying a Ford could be considered a sensible idea. They weren't on the forefront of technology, but they built decent cars and trucks. And then, more recently, one ****ING EXPLODED OUTSIDE MY HOUSE. The part of this story I often leave out, which is also 100% true, is this: I was having an MSN conversation with someone at the time, probably someone who's still using this forum but I forget who. I said, "Holy crap, a car just exploded outside my house!" This part is 100% true, their response, after about 20 seconds was, "Was it a Ford?"
The realities of years ago aren't the realities of today, and trying to be stubborn about it is about as sensible as buying cars prone to self-termination.
The second argument, "crappy on Linux", is what I'm taking issue with here. Linux is irrelevant as a gaming platform, and even as a general OS platform is marginalized by competing platforms which are consistently years ahead of Linux in terms of usability and, more importantly, the amount of available high-class software. People like to make the counter-to-reality argument that ATI should spend its paltry resources to correct this situation, as if it would in any way have an effect on the larger issue.
Linux is a hellmess to set up and use for ordinary people. Before you're going to get a larger user base, this needs to be corrected, but since it's developed by hardcore geeks things like this don't get any priority. Things like whether or not regular people are going to have an aneurysm trying to do anything outside of a command window isn't a big deal when there's a 3% efficiency gain to be had by spending 18 months rewriting 5 lines of code to use as few cycles as possible.
Until it's usable by normal people, you'll have no significant user base. And without a user base that at least makes Mac at risk of being overtaken, ATI would be displaying nothing short of gross incompetence if they actually spent any time on the drivers.
A more concise way of putting it would be: Linux developers don't put any priority on usability for people who don't build their own robot butlers as a hobby, and ATI doesn't put any priority on an OS that's unusable by everyone else.
The first argument is easy to destroy. You see, 11 years ago, buying a Ford could be considered a sensible idea. They weren't on the forefront of technology, but they built decent cars and trucks. And then, more recently, one ****ING EXPLODED OUTSIDE MY HOUSE. The part of this story I often leave out, which is also 100% true, is this: I was having an MSN conversation with someone at the time, probably someone who's still using this forum but I forget who. I said, "Holy crap, a car just exploded outside my house!" This part is 100% true, their response, after about 20 seconds was, "Was it a Ford?"
The realities of years ago aren't the realities of today, and trying to be stubborn about it is about as sensible as buying cars prone to self-termination.
The second argument, "crappy on Linux", is what I'm taking issue with here. Linux is irrelevant as a gaming platform, and even as a general OS platform is marginalized by competing platforms which are consistently years ahead of Linux in terms of usability and, more importantly, the amount of available high-class software. People like to make the counter-to-reality argument that ATI should spend its paltry resources to correct this situation, as if it would in any way have an effect on the larger issue.
Linux is a hellmess to set up and use for ordinary people. Before you're going to get a larger user base, this needs to be corrected, but since it's developed by hardcore geeks things like this don't get any priority. Things like whether or not regular people are going to have an aneurysm trying to do anything outside of a command window isn't a big deal when there's a 3% efficiency gain to be had by spending 18 months rewriting 5 lines of code to use as few cycles as possible.
Until it's usable by normal people, you'll have no significant user base. And without a user base that at least makes Mac at risk of being overtaken, ATI would be displaying nothing short of gross incompetence if they actually spent any time on the drivers.
A more concise way of putting it would be: Linux developers don't put any priority on usability for people who don't build their own robot butlers as a hobby, and ATI doesn't put any priority on an OS that's unusable by everyone else.
Re: Radeon 5870 is a monster
There is no need to waste ATI resources.
Linux people write drivers that WORK for FREE for ANY hardware.
Any claims that something doesnt work on linux means that those who made the hardware did not want it to work on it. (bear in mind that linux distos cannot just put the driver wrapper due to legality).
Userbase for linux is underrated. Many schools switch to linux, universities use linux. And even when I was in uni at least 40% of people amongst me were using linux for daily purposes.
Yes, its not the best gamer platform. But noone can prove that it is not going to be.
Linux people write drivers that WORK for FREE for ANY hardware.
Any claims that something doesnt work on linux means that those who made the hardware did not want it to work on it. (bear in mind that linux distos cannot just put the driver wrapper due to legality).
Userbase for linux is underrated. Many schools switch to linux, universities use linux. And even when I was in uni at least 40% of people amongst me were using linux for daily purposes.
Yes, its not the best gamer platform. But noone can prove that it is not going to be.
Re: Radeon 5870 is a monster
Hmm, Linux might be relevant as a gaming platform, if you happen to use it for that...
Re: Radeon 5870 is a monster
Linux faces a chicken-and-egg problem wrt hardware - the reason Linux is a hellmess to set up is poor hardware support. Poor hardware support exists because nobody gives a shit about Linux. Nobody gives a shit about Linux because it's a hellmess to set up.
Apple works around this by having a hardware list shorter than the proofs you memorized for your midterms.
MS wins because MS already won.
Linux has neither - so you have to do what Apple does for you - if you're building a box you plan on loading Linux onto, you have to think like Apple. Apple has a specific list of hardware they support. The difference is that they sell it to you with the OS. Linux doesn't sell you the hardware with the OS, so you're gonna have to check your parts yourself.
edit: really though, they do need to develop a stable binary interface for certain families of drivers, so companies can make one and forget about it, rather than worrying about either open-sourcing proprietary driver tech, or maintaining a binary driver for every GCC/Kernel setup.
Apple works around this by having a hardware list shorter than the proofs you memorized for your midterms.
MS wins because MS already won.
Linux has neither - so you have to do what Apple does for you - if you're building a box you plan on loading Linux onto, you have to think like Apple. Apple has a specific list of hardware they support. The difference is that they sell it to you with the OS. Linux doesn't sell you the hardware with the OS, so you're gonna have to check your parts yourself.
edit: really though, they do need to develop a stable binary interface for certain families of drivers, so companies can make one and forget about it, rather than worrying about either open-sourcing proprietary driver tech, or maintaining a binary driver for every GCC/Kernel setup.
Re: Radeon 5870 is a monster
there are bash releases for windows... what now?I find it amusing that some common windows users download and install that many obscure tools for tasks solvable by 1 or 2 lines of bash.
Re: Radeon 5870 is a monster
Just so I'm not making enemies of the smart people:
I'm not dissing or degrading Linux here. I'm stating simple economics and trying to make it clear in everyone's mind that ATI being a clusterfail on Linux isn't something you can reasonably blame them for, any more than you can blame me for not even considering a Ford when I was buying my first car.
People only need one bad experience to forever taint a concept, as clearly seen by the number of people who have only ever bought ATI in what is, in computer terms, the ancient past.
It wasn't so long ago that FA posted a thread I remember very clearly, where he was tremendously enthusiastic about Ubuntu (or another Linux distro, but I think it was Ubuntu). It doesn't sound like he's using it anymore though, because of the fact that he'll defend the technology behind it in the same sentence he says it's a total crock in simple terms of day-to-day ease of use.
Linux is a world of bad experiences for people who just want an OS. Until that changes, there are going to be a ton of people like FA, who love the technology but not the product.
I'm also not a Windows or Microsoft fanboy by any measure. I trolled on Vista pretty much since its release, and I think the Zune is just an overpriced and underfeatured iPod, which is really saying something. Yes, I did own a Zune for about a week, and I have used an iPod before. I was impressed by the postive aspects of both. I also hate on X360 at every opportunity, viewing it as the greater of two evils even compared to the horrors of the PS3.
I just happen to think that with all factors taken into account, Windows XP, and now Windows 7, are the most well-balanced OSes for most people. The very instant Linux somehow overcomes some of the bigger issues facing it - lack of software, lack of drivers, lack of GUI, etc - I will be using it. I'm anxious for any opportunity to get off the MS boat, and I've been following projects such as ReactOS with great anticipation.
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Spring itself can be seen as prototypical of the whole Linux movement - endless potential, horrible first-time experience, a war for 5 years to get a simple startup GUI, and a control panel (if you even know it exists) that would make any regular user cry. Many important functions must be typed and 99% of the community, even the developers, don't know what most of them are because nobody thought to write them down. No real, comprehensive changelog that's kept up-to-date. You can write code to essentially play any part of the game for you, but most people have no idea how to do so, and as a result they are at a gross disadvantage. There are game-breaking bugs, and "features" that have been established to be undesirable, but there is no way to disable them without editing your registry.
All the people concerned with how the end-user sees things (ie, the "content developers") are ****ing horrified at the exploitation possibilities, but if you bring them up, most people think you're being paranoid (even the end-users) despite the fact that mods/games already have to include scripts to defeat this kind of thing, and any "content developer" will tell you quietly that there is so much already going on that their only tool against it is to pretend it's not happening and hope that everyone believes them. The player base has remained the same size or shrunk for 3 years, and our player turnover rate is astronomical, especially for new players.
Does any of this sound familiar? There needs to be some de-Linuxification done before Spring will ever get popular. Winning some contest, that only the most hardcore FOSS geeks have even heard of, will do precisely nothing to help us when FOSS methodologies and development techniques have created the undesirable situation in the first place. With all factors taken into account, I cannot recommend Spring to anyone I know who's a simple PC user. I have a vested interest in the user base growing, and at the same time I know that doing so much as lifting a finger to help the user base grow will only serve to create a negative impression among those who decide to try it.
I'm not dissing or degrading Linux here. I'm stating simple economics and trying to make it clear in everyone's mind that ATI being a clusterfail on Linux isn't something you can reasonably blame them for, any more than you can blame me for not even considering a Ford when I was buying my first car.
People only need one bad experience to forever taint a concept, as clearly seen by the number of people who have only ever bought ATI in what is, in computer terms, the ancient past.
It wasn't so long ago that FA posted a thread I remember very clearly, where he was tremendously enthusiastic about Ubuntu (or another Linux distro, but I think it was Ubuntu). It doesn't sound like he's using it anymore though, because of the fact that he'll defend the technology behind it in the same sentence he says it's a total crock in simple terms of day-to-day ease of use.
Linux is a world of bad experiences for people who just want an OS. Until that changes, there are going to be a ton of people like FA, who love the technology but not the product.
I'm also not a Windows or Microsoft fanboy by any measure. I trolled on Vista pretty much since its release, and I think the Zune is just an overpriced and underfeatured iPod, which is really saying something. Yes, I did own a Zune for about a week, and I have used an iPod before. I was impressed by the postive aspects of both. I also hate on X360 at every opportunity, viewing it as the greater of two evils even compared to the horrors of the PS3.
I just happen to think that with all factors taken into account, Windows XP, and now Windows 7, are the most well-balanced OSes for most people. The very instant Linux somehow overcomes some of the bigger issues facing it - lack of software, lack of drivers, lack of GUI, etc - I will be using it. I'm anxious for any opportunity to get off the MS boat, and I've been following projects such as ReactOS with great anticipation.
----------
Spring itself can be seen as prototypical of the whole Linux movement - endless potential, horrible first-time experience, a war for 5 years to get a simple startup GUI, and a control panel (if you even know it exists) that would make any regular user cry. Many important functions must be typed and 99% of the community, even the developers, don't know what most of them are because nobody thought to write them down. No real, comprehensive changelog that's kept up-to-date. You can write code to essentially play any part of the game for you, but most people have no idea how to do so, and as a result they are at a gross disadvantage. There are game-breaking bugs, and "features" that have been established to be undesirable, but there is no way to disable them without editing your registry.
All the people concerned with how the end-user sees things (ie, the "content developers") are ****ing horrified at the exploitation possibilities, but if you bring them up, most people think you're being paranoid (even the end-users) despite the fact that mods/games already have to include scripts to defeat this kind of thing, and any "content developer" will tell you quietly that there is so much already going on that their only tool against it is to pretend it's not happening and hope that everyone believes them. The player base has remained the same size or shrunk for 3 years, and our player turnover rate is astronomical, especially for new players.
Does any of this sound familiar? There needs to be some de-Linuxification done before Spring will ever get popular. Winning some contest, that only the most hardcore FOSS geeks have even heard of, will do precisely nothing to help us when FOSS methodologies and development techniques have created the undesirable situation in the first place. With all factors taken into account, I cannot recommend Spring to anyone I know who's a simple PC user. I have a vested interest in the user base growing, and at the same time I know that doing so much as lifting a finger to help the user base grow will only serve to create a negative impression among those who decide to try it.
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Forboding Angel
- Evolution RTS Developer
- Posts: 14673
- Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43
Re: Radeon 5870 is a monster
+100% caydr. You pretty much read my mind.
Also, to back up what he said, despite it's flaws, I loved using ubuntu, but I spent most of the time using it, fighting the interface and trying to get simple things to work.
Long story short is that I can't use it from day to day. I need so much stuff for modding and my day job that just doesn't work all that well through wine. It was a fun experience, but in the end I had to go with what works for what I need.
If ubuntu ever get's it's ass in geat and becomes the all encompassing end all be all end user experience, I'm there dude. However, at the moment, such a thing doesn't exist, and windows 7 rocks my ass and I love it, so... yeah.
I'm not an m$ fanboy by any means, but I;m glad that finally as per win7, they're "doin it rite".
Also, to back up what he said, despite it's flaws, I loved using ubuntu, but I spent most of the time using it, fighting the interface and trying to get simple things to work.
Long story short is that I can't use it from day to day. I need so much stuff for modding and my day job that just doesn't work all that well through wine. It was a fun experience, but in the end I had to go with what works for what I need.
If ubuntu ever get's it's ass in geat and becomes the all encompassing end all be all end user experience, I'm there dude. However, at the moment, such a thing doesn't exist, and windows 7 rocks my ass and I love it, so... yeah.
I'm not an m$ fanboy by any means, but I;m glad that finally as per win7, they're "doin it rite".
Re: Radeon 5870 is a monster
did you mention how ubuntu offers gui options (often automatically in the system tray) for installing both common proprietary drivers and updates?Forboding Angel wrote:Did I mention command line?
hitler did ww2
Re: Radeon 5870 is a monster
ooooooo can we know what was written there?Caydr wrote:Wrong
Re: Radeon 5870 is a monster
If linux had some common binary format and simple installers like windows, it would attract many more noob users. Another problem is dependencies that makes it necessary to download several packages to install something and it is a real pain imo. Well, this is more of a problem with the software packages than linux itself.
Re: Radeon 5870 is a monster
I just wish there wasn't such a thing against including the libs within your program. I mean, keeping all the libraries in a centralized location is efficient, but in a lot of cases these are small files that really wouldn't hurt to be bundled with the app. Yes, you're missing out on patching, but in userland stability can be more important than security.zerver wrote:If linux had some common binary format and simple installers like windows, it would attract many more noob users. Another problem is dependencies that makes it necessary to download several packages to install something and it is a real pain imo. Well, this is more of a problem with the software packages than linux itself.
Re: Radeon 5870 is a monster
I find it humorous that downloading unverified, unhashed installers and running them with often little or no oversight as to what they do is considered to be simpler in any way than, say, browsing the repositories through any of the GUI equipped utilities out there for accessible distributions of Linux.
I dislike dependencies as well, why do so many Windows programs come with them? I shouldn't have to download the .NET framework, or pull particular .dll to run anything!
Note: I am primarily a Windows user.
I dislike dependencies as well, why do so many Windows programs come with them? I shouldn't have to download the .NET framework, or pull particular .dll to run anything!
Note: I am primarily a Windows user.
Re: Radeon 5870 is a monster
i found ubuntu far more usable than windows xp, the only problem was constantly needing to play games and do other windows stuff that doesn't work perfectly in linux.
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MajorMayhem
- Posts: 98
- Joined: 08 Jan 2009, 23:39
Re: Radeon 5870 is a monster
I have an ASUS ATi 4830 and really love it. I think the image quality is better then the 9800. I know what you mean about the bugginess though. I have had a few problems and graphic anomaly. Still love my card though. I can max everything in spring except if I use shore waves the loading halts on creating sky for some reason.
Re: Radeon 5870 is a monster
It's not ATI it's just that spring devs are NVIDIA fanboiz.
Re: Radeon 5870 is a monster
it's just ATI sucked at opengl for a really long time