• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Is anyone else getting bored with computers?

B

BD2003

Lifer
Is it just me or does it seem like there absolutely nothing to get excited over yet in the industry? Everything seems like its in such a lull.

64 bit CPUs are starting to come out, but so far, theyre offering nothing special but a bit faster performance at a bit slower clockspeed. Show me 64-bit Hyperthreading PCs that can do something that previous processors couldnt, and maybe Ill upgrade. Or give me an application that actually taxes it.

Video cards keep getting faster and faster, and all these great features added, but when it comes down to it, theyre far more powerful than any game requires, and game that actually use all those newfangled features are so few and far between its ridiculous. We've got half life 2, and doom 3...and well...thats about it. Dx9 cards have been out over a year, and other than Halo I cant think of any other game that makes serious usage of even dx8 features like pixel shading and bump mapping. Even so, this is still the sector of the industry that is showing the most innovation, but its still nothing special. The last exciting thing in video was the 9700, and that was quite a while ago.

And we've been using the same sound cards for years now. The audigy uses the exact same chip as the sb live, only its got that eax advanced HD stuff, which for the life of me I couldnt tell from eax2 in a actual game setting. The sound industry on the whole has gone backwards since aureal died.

Keyboards and mice havent appreciably changed in years. The mouse wheel was great, and optical mice even better. But Im still using the microsoft original intellimouse with optical. Theres no reason to upgrade. The new tilt wheel is cool...but still same old. Maybe when bluetooth hits it big...

But speaking of bluetooth...thats kinda taking forever. Wireless LAN is cool, but its kinda buggy at the moment. This is one of those features that should come standard on motherboards, and then theyll start to get put to proper use.

Storage is still the same old same old, sure we've got serial ATA, but its proving to be nothing more special than a thinner wire and a higher throughput ceiling when the drives we're using barely break ATA33 most of the time. DVD burners are pretty damn cool, but it still feels like a higher capacity CD to me. Why on earth cant I just use a DVD-RW like a floppy, and just drag files to it? And dont even get me started on this dual format BS.

I mean, Im still using my nforce 1 system, and I can see absolutely no reason to upgrade. All games run not only fine, but excellent on my xp1700+ and 9500 Pro. My roomate has a 2800+ XP and a 9800, and all he gets out of that is a higher resolution. Wow.

Anyone else know what I mean?
 
Anyone else know what I mean?
Click to expand...

Raise the bar a little. building an HTPC or a home recording studio can take the doldrums out of game/game/game/word process/websurf/game. Get a DV camcorder or a digi cam, or create a web site. I find that being diverse can keep the 'ol PC from being "the same ol thing"🙂
 
Originally posted by: rbV5
Anyone else know what I mean?
Click to expand...

Raise the bar a little. building an HTPC or a home recording studio can take the doldrums out of game/game/game/word process/websurf/game. Get a DV camcorder or a digi cam, or create a web site. I find that being diverse can keep the 'ol PC from being "the same ol thing"🙂
Click to expand...

I already have a HTPC, Digicam and pda. I find that only the digicam gets much use. I dont have a use for a pda other than it being a glorified toy. The HTPC is fun, especially with all the emulators, but its still nothing amazing.

Digicams are awesome though, and I love my mp3 player. That is the kinda innovation Im longing for. Something that totally changes youre usage of it. Something like the internet, or 3d graphics, or even full blown wireless, that actually works well and is cheap and effective.
 
Originally posted by: BD2003
Is it just me or does it seem like there absolutely nothing to get excited over yet in the industry? Everything seems like its in such a lull.

64 bit CPUs are starting to come out, but so far, theyre offering nothing special but a bit faster performance at a bit slower clockspeed. Show me 64-bit Hyperthreading PCs that can do something that previous processors couldnt, and maybe Ill upgrade. Or give me an application that actually taxes it.

Video cards keep getting faster and faster, and all these great features added, but when it comes down to it, theyre far more powerful than any game requires, and game that actually use all those newfangled features are so few and far between its ridiculous. We've got half life 2, and doom 3...and well...thats about it. Dx9 cards have been out over a year, and other than Halo I cant think of any other game that makes serious usage of even dx8 features like pixel shading and bump mapping. Even so, this is still the sector of the industry that is showing the most innovation, but its still nothing special. The last exciting thing in video was the 9700, and that was quite a while ago.

And we've been using the same sound cards for years now. The audigy uses the exact same chip as the sb live, only its got that eax advanced HD stuff, which for the life of me I couldnt tell from eax2 in a actual game setting. The sound industry on the whole has gone backwards since aureal died.

Keyboards and mice havent appreciably changed in years. The mouse wheel was great, and optical mice even better. But Im still using the microsoft original intellimouse with optical. Theres no reason to upgrade. The new tilt wheel is cool...but still same old. Maybe when bluetooth hits it big...

But speaking of bluetooth...thats kinda taking forever. Wireless LAN is cool, but its kinda buggy at the moment. This is one of those features that should come standard on motherboards, and then theyll start to get put to proper use.

Storage is still the same old same old, sure we've got serial ATA, but its proving to be nothing more special than a thinner wire and a higher throughput ceiling when the drives we're using barely break ATA33 most of the time. DVD burners are pretty damn cool, but it still feels like a higher capacity CD to me. Why on earth cant I just use a DVD-RW like a floppy, and just drag files to it? And dont even get me started on this dual format BS.

I mean, Im still using my nforce 1 system, and I can see absolutely no reason to upgrade. All games run not only fine, but excellent on my xp1700+ and 9500 Pro. My roomate has a 2800+ XP and a 9800, and all he gets out of that is a higher resolution. Wow.

Anyone else know what I mean?
Click to expand...

As soon as HL2 is released you'll take it back. Espically if you deathmatch online.

Besides that, have you played Max Payne 2?

And one advancement that you have neglected to mention is videocards being able to handle current generation games with AA and AF. at decent performance and resolutions.

This in my opinion is a huge advancement and one of ATi's forte's.

That all being said, have you looked at the average framerate a videocard gets in Anand's benchmark suite's? Gun metal (Actually played the game, nice game) and basicaly any game that's an X-Box game really hits the shaders hard and requires massive graphics horsepower.

You need atleast a 9600 class graphics card to play the current generation of games. Tombraider, Maxpanye2 (If you want AA/AF. That though, I chalk up to it being a very well engienered game that gets excellent performance out of last generation hardware), gunmetal, And Aquawatchayamacallit (The underwaterFPS game) all require significant horsepower to run well. Much less activate any anistropic or even more so, anti aliasing.

Also, DVD-RW's can be used like floppies if formatted for packet writing.
 
I disagree with your statement on videocards. Some of these brand-new cards like the FX5950 and 9800XT have a hard time breaking 30fps in some games. Neither of these cards can dream of breaking 60fps in HL2 or DIII, especially with lots of eyecandy turned on. Videocards are evolving rapidly, and I can't wait to see just how good they get. More competition would help.

Digital cameras are making leaps every year. In two years, I bet we'll have ~20mpx digicams under $1K! I am very excited about such possibilities.
 
Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
I disagree with your statement on videocards. Some of these brand-new cards like the FX5950 and 9800XT have a hard time breaking 30fps in some games. Neither of these cards can dream of breaking 60fps in HL2 or DIII, especially with lots of eyecandy turned on. Videocards are evolving rapidly, and I can't wait to see just how good they get. More competition would help.

Digital cameras are making leaps every year. In two years, I bet we'll have ~20mpx digicams under $1K! I am very excited about such possibilities.
Click to expand...

Espically since even 100 megapixel cameras would be useful. The more megapixels you have, the more you can resort to digital zoom without killing image quality.
 
I set up a FLAC lossless music jukebox server to keep busy, and have ripped 800 CDs from my collection so far (about another 400 to go). It's sweet to have instant access to my 800 pop CDs without trying to figure which pile the CD I want is hiding in.

Aside from finishing the ripping, I also want to set up remote playing via wifi, possibly even a wifi PocketPC for roaming goodness.

The video card wars have been interesting with all of nVidia's cheating, denial and lawyering and with their accusations against ATI this week, but aside from AMD getting back in the game with A64's good performance it's been dull for months in the motherboard and CPU area.
 
Originally posted by: BD2003

I mean, Im still using my nforce 1 system, and I can see absolutely no reason to upgrade. All games run not only fine, but excellent on my xp1700+ and 9500 Pro. My roomate has a 2800+ XP and a 9800, and all he gets out of that is a higher resolution. Wow.

Anyone else know what I mean?
Click to expand...

But what games do you run? Half-Life? Sure, if you had a Model-T Ford you would still get to work. But if you had a modern day Mustang, you could get there faster and in style. The difference is that the 9800 has a lot more muscle than the 9500 and can drive higher resolutions. Games obviously look a lot better at higher resolutions. I don't
why you wouldn't prefer the higher resolutions, especially when you can use AF/AA to make it look even better.
 
Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
I disagree with your statement on videocards. Some of these brand-new cards like the FX5950 and 9800XT have a hard time breaking 30fps in some games. Neither of these cards can dream of breaking 60fps in HL2 or DIII, especially with lots of eyecandy turned on. Videocards are evolving rapidly, and I can't wait to see just how good they get. More competition would help.

Digital cameras are making leaps every year. In two years, I bet we'll have ~20mpx digicams under $1K! I am very excited about such possibilities.
Click to expand...

HL2 runs great on my 9500 Pro and XP1700+ at 1024x768 with 2x FSAA and 8x Performance AF. Sure, the game is unfinished, but all the eye candy mentioned in previews was present and running. It being pre-alpha would only make it unoptimized, not hyper-optimized. Turning the flashlight on which kicks the bump mapping in on the walls slowed things a bit down though, but still above 30fps. What really made my system cry was the karma physics. Not so much killing people, but the little demo level with the pool. Shoot a rocket at the crates floating in the water and forget about it.

In the end though, Id say it ran about on par with UT2003 if not a little better, but looked so damn good. The shaders and bump mapping make a HUGE difference. It seems that to play HL2, Im gonna need to upgrade my CPU, not my video.

That being said, for some inexplicable reason, halo ran much much worse than HL2.

Max Payne 2 is still sitting in its box, Im too busy playing freedom fighters. Plus Ive still got my fzero gx and soul caliber 2 addictions taking time up. Theres been some great releases recently, but they all run fine on hardware released 2 or more years ago.

As far as AF and FSAA, I couldnt live without them. But 2x and 8x are enough for me for the time being. 10x7 is also a high enough resolution. I couldnt care less to go any higher in either respect, id rather the actual games look better. Thats the point of diminishing returns. I need more polys, better texturing and good shaders. Not just crisper crap.

Its not so much that Im "bored" with using my computer, but rather...wheres the innovation in the industry? Its starting to look like the movie industry, where they would rather just release sequel after sequel cause its safe rather than make a new, original movie.
 
I guess I'm mostly of the same school of thought right now, I'm currently on a new record for time between upgrading anything in my 2 primary systems over the last 4yrs. I've been eyeing the A64 and/or 17" 16ms LCD but I just can't justify the expense when I want a new surfboard for my quiver and a new mountain bike frameset to replace my aging Super-V 2000 while my current systems are handling everything quite well and actually should for sometime to come since I only game very lightly and then only@1024x768 the native res of my 15" NEC 1550v LCD. It's plenty for text which is 95% of my time on the PC so it can stay low on my future toys list.
 
Is it just me or does it seem like there absolutely nothing to get excited over yet in the industry? Everything seems like its in such a lull.
Click to expand...

Its just you.

Every few months I see another post in AT forums about how boring the industry has gotten, and how nothing new is coming
out... WAH!

Sorry to disappoint, but sometimes the industry has to step back and figure out how to actually integrate all the
technology they've spent the last year announcing.

Not to mention that COMDEX is less than a month away, and many of the exhibitors there are holding back on
new product announcements so they can make a big splash at the show.

I'm not going to get into replying to all your comments, because I tend to get too wordy as it is.
All I can say is WTH? For a rare moment in your computing experience you are at a point when your computer
does what you want, when you want it, and fast enough to make you happy about the result;
and you want to b!tch about it!!!

Maybe instead of worrying about the industry, you need to sit down and figure out what you need a computer for.



 
Originally posted by: CQuinn
Is it just me or does it seem like there absolutely nothing to get excited over yet in the industry? Everything seems like its in such a lull.
Click to expand...

Its just you.

Every few months I see another post in AT forums about how boring the industry has gotten, and how nothing new is coming
out... WAH!

Sorry to disappoint, but sometimes the industry has to step back and figure out how to actually integrate all the
technology they've spent the last year announcing.

Not to mention that COMDEX is less than a month away, and many of the exhibitors there are holding back on
new product announcements so they can make a big splash at the show.

I'm not going to get into replying to all your comments, because I tend to get too wordy as it is.
All I can say is WTH? For a rare moment in your computing experience you are at a point when your computer
does what you want, when you want it, and fast enough to make you happy about the result;
and you want to b!tch about it!!!

Maybe instead of worrying about the industry, you need to sit down and figure out what you need a computer for.
Click to expand...


And what are all these new technologies that have been announced in the last year?

My computer did what I wanted to do, and fast enough when I had a p200. That was about the time the sb live and the a3d cards came out, and around the time when 3dfx came through, and the intellimouse was invented, and broadband was starting to crop up..

And everything since then has been incremental upgrades.

Theres been LCDs, but those arent nearly as good as CRTs yet. We've got wireless tech, but wired stuff is still faster and more reliable.

Im not saying Im unhappy with my computer in any way. Im just saying that I can see no real reason to upgrade, BECAUSE Im happy with my computer. This is both a good thing, and a bad thing.

Show me voice recognition that actually works, REAL 3 dimensional graphics than dont torture your eyes, 3d sound that actually kicks ass, some sort of new peripheral or controller, something to actually get excited over rather than just another incremental upgrade!
 
Originally posted by: smashp
go get a USB power Real doll or a real girlfriend
Click to expand...

Sounds like someone has a fetish for usb powered women! 😉

No thanks, I already have a real one.

Computers arent my life, Im not some bellyaching computer nerd who thinks he knows everything about computers and how everything is wrong etc.

Im just expressing my boredom with the industry. Nothing more, nothing less.
 
While I disagree with some of your details, I agree with the point of your statement. I grew up with games that were mostly black and white or text. The move to 256 colors and 640x480 resolution was a huge fantastic step making me crave a VGA monitor for years (until I could afford a new computer). The move to 16 million colors and 1024x768 resolution was another enormous step - absolutely night and day different. But things have stuck there and really there isn't anything else that will make a night and day difference. Sure a new videocard comes out and now I can turn on one or two more pieces of eye candy or add in AA - but that really is such a minor difference in quality. I bet the average person would take a very long time to notice the difference between DX8 and DX9 screenshots. Yes things are getting better, but it is all just minor improvments and nothing major is in the works.

We could say the same thing about processors. The 3.06 GHz P4 was released 11 months ago, and now we are at 3.2 GHz. Intel has been at a standstill. The Athlon 64 is a great chip and a major change from AMD's previous chips, but there is no software for it meaning you don't use any of its new features. So yes I can agree that CPUs could seem less exciting.

I remember going from 1 sound at a time to a speaker that could produce 3 sounds. Ahh now music with cords! What a huge difference that made. Then a friend bought a sound card and music actually sounded like it was supposed to - another huge leap. That was 14 years ago and I cannot tell the difference of music now and then. So again I can agree with your thoughts.
.
.
.
But I find computers more fascinating now than ever before. While the changes in the past made huge differences to the end users, they were all simple changes. Now the engineers have to fight the hard battles - battles which might not make an enormous difference to the end user, but these are very interesting projects. As an engineer, this is very interesting to me. I find myself coming to forums like this far more frequently now than I did in the past.

So as an engineer it is interesting, as an end user I agree that things are at a near standstill.
 
I see it partially as engineers having to fight harder battles, but I think another big factor is that companies are simply too scared to take the risk and make something new, which may or may not succeed.

Theres no reason why creative couldnt step up and do something new in 3d sound. They could bring back calculated reverb waves that died with aureal. Instead, what do they do? Rehash the same chip over and over, add support for another speaker, and call it new. Its safer that way, and besides, they have no competition.

Whats stopping nvidia and ATi from taking 3d graphics and running with it? Instead of innovating and really setting themselves apart from the competition, its just a game of piggybacking each other and releasing a chip thats marginally faster than their last and the competitors. Same with the CPUs. Physics is getting big in games, but its slow and limited by CPUs. Why not make a physics accelerator, a chip strictly optimized for doing those specific calculations. Make it part of the cpu or the gpu most likely.



 
I actually like the lull...Its nice not to have to upgrade so often 🙂 I remember when I got my 233mhz Pentium MMX processor/4 meg S3 Virge 😉 that just 6 months later it would lag in some games...

But now I've had my pc since last december and it handles things well...

There is nothing wrong with having older hardware running things nicely 🙂
 
...hardware T&L (Whichi s now used in every new game I can think of..)
programable pixel/vertex shaders (Also rearing their head in alot of new games)
Playable AA and AF at resolutions high enough to satisfy almost anyone
A GB of RAM falling under 200$
3GHz CPUs which can finally compress video in real time.. (Big improvement, makes real time taping of shows possible)
HDTV out on graphics cards (ATi has a dongle which'll let you do HDTV out)
200+GB harddrives (Let's see you store your Mp3 collection on your P200!!)
These are all incremental upgrades? *AhEM!*
Starting with the advent of the northwood P4, the rate at which computers are able to conquer previously unheard of barriers (realtime MPEG-2 DVD standard comrpession, ripping a CD in 5 minutes, etc..) has increased dramatically.

Also, speech recognition is a software problem, and not a function of hardware (P200 could do speech recognition, and most speech recognition does not reach even 40% CPU utilization on 2GHZ+ CPUs)

Plus, look at the advances in photo printers! DV cameras! And the uber popular 'Fill my harddrive with 200 gigs of MP3s and DivX rips...' trend. These things would all be completly out of the question even 4 years ago. Hell, 4 years ago, there wasn't even an affordable photo printer short of color laser. Computers struggled to do even basic DV editing. Real time MPEG-2 compression was a *JOKE!*. Hell, comptuers back then couldn't even manage realtime SVCD compression!!
 
Why not make a physics accelerator, a chip strictly optimized for doing those specific calculations. Make it part of the cpu or the gpu most likely.
Click to expand...


Physics calculations are a challange even for the fastest of the fastest super computers. We're still using farms of Power 4's (I mean, literally hundreds, all running on 10 gigabit switches) just trying to do atom splitting in non real time.

Real time physics is a very complicated proposal. And is relativley non important in games. I'd rather much have my pixel and vertex shaders in 32 bit resolution, thank you.

Have you seen the advances in lighting techniques, pixel and vertex shaders, (Water and light maps in HL2 screenies are prime examples). We can't even run those at 60FPS! And you want to dedicate a whole portion of the core to physics processing?! Dang, man. That's crazy! One step at a time. Right now we're still stuck on trying to revup polycount and do decent shadows/lighting along with trying to develop the necescescary software to simplify the creation of pixel and vertex shaders.

Example: Dawn - Hair, wings, facial features.. they bring cards like the R9800 pro to it's knees begging for mercy.



 
Originally posted by: FishTankX
Why not make a physics accelerator, a chip strictly optimized for doing those specific calculations. Make it part of the cpu or the gpu most likely.
Click to expand...


Physics calculations are a challange even for the fastest of the fastest super computers. We're still using farms of Power 4's (I mean, literally hundreds, all running on 10 gigabit switches) just trying to do atom splitting in non real time.

Real time physics is a very complicated proposal. And is relativley non important in games. I'd rather much have my pixel and vertex shaders in 32 bit resolution, thank you.

Have you seen the advances in lighting techniques, pixel and vertex shaders, (Water and light maps in HL2 screenies are prime examples). We can't even run those at 60FPS! And you want to dedicate a whole portion of the core to physics processing?! Dang, man. That's crazy! One step at a time. Right now we're still stuck on trying to revup polycount and do decent shadows/lighting along with trying to develop the necescescary software to simplify the creation of pixel and vertex shaders.

Example: Dawn - Hair, wings, facial features.. they bring cards like the R9800 pro to it's knees begging for mercy.
Click to expand...


Seems like the solution is for intel to pick up the GPU makers hammer, and outfit a P4 for GPU use. Imagine an Intel i3200 256mb, sporting a 3.2ghz processor and 256mb of onboard ram (of what type, I'm not sure... DDR1000?) If properly optimised, it could slog through just about anything....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top