Jolt Country

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:it offers absolutely no benefits -- not a single one except that it is "new"

Multiple desktops.

I was kidding about half the shit I was talking about, BUT, if I had a new PC I'd give 10 a shot. DO you guys recall if you can get a fresh Windows 10 ISO for free? I am at work, otherwise I would spend time looking this up. In all seriousness, I'd totally install it someplace. Just separate from the computer I get work done with, due to the normal headaches that involve upgrading an operating system. (It's always been my experience that fresh installs work better than upgrades for MS's stuff.)

I use 10 at work and in the immortal words of the Trumpster: "it's fine". Thankfully they brought back the start menu after the horrible windows 8 metro shit, although the stupid metro tiles show up in the start menu now. It's got quirks like half of the times I try to click to show the lock menu it won't show up and it keeps losing my network password connection and the IT guy has to fix it.

I absolutely refuse to give in to the Windows 10 upgrade spam/scam. I was offended enough when it was just nagging me every day but now that they have the nerve to auto-schedule the upgrade as if it's a simple update is almost enough for me to pull out my windows 95 disc and reformat. I will now never upgrade my home laptop to windows 10, ever. I always chose MS because compared to Apple I felt as if I had some choice and control over the hardware and software of a machine that I paid for. MS has pulled a page from the Apple playbook by telling me what to do with my computer and a page out of Oracle's playbook with spammy daily upgrade nagging (Fuck You Oracle I'll never update Java again!!!)

I have an iPhone, to my chagrin, and I'm in this cycle, currently:

- I have iOS 8 something on my phone. The few things I have (I had to get an 8GB version in a story too long to tell here) are SPEEDY.

- I know for a fact that when they release newer versions of their OS, they make sure it runs like shit on older devices. My iPhone 5c is an older device.

- I wanted to put AdBlock on my phone and the App Store says it requires 9.x.

So now I have to decide if I'd rather have something that can run anything or can run stuff poorly.

There shouldn't be 5 creators of phones, there should be about 300.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:There shouldn't be 5 creators of phones, there should be about 300.

sadly it's going in the other direction as I fear BlackBerry won't be making phones much longer. I wanted to love my BlackBerry Priv but unfortunately the only thing I love about it is I'm using a real keyboard to type this. Their software is total shit on android, especially their email and "hub" apps. Google Maps runs like shit on it too, I don't know if it's BB's fault or if Google intentionally handicapped them. I fear I'll have to go back to Samsung next, the damn bloatware ridden fuckers.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:

RealNC wrote:

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:it offers absolutely no benefits -- not a single one except that it is "new"

DirectX 12.

I would wager that most people, if sitting down to the exact game running in 10, 11 and 12 wouldn't be able to say which version it was running.

DX12 is rather special compared to any previous version. It adds multi-threading (yes, DirectX actually lacked proper multi-threading until now) and changes the API to such an extend, where games get access very close to the hardware (similar to 3fdx Glide in the past.) The end result is that CPU-limited games gain a huge performance boost as the CPU bottleneck is removed.

TL;DR: For CPU-limited games, DX11 50FPS, DX12 100FPS.

So yeah, you would be able to tell :-)

Oh, btw, the DX12 CPU thingy is not due to Microsoft feeling like "hey, let's improve DX for modern CPUs." No, it was the pressure from OpenGL. The new GL standard (called "Vulcan",) does the same thing, and Microsoft was forced to improve DX to keep up.

Understood, but there is absolutely no reason they couldn't make DirectX 12 work on XP if they were motivated.

I get not going back that far, but to draw a line is simply because MS wants to support fewer operating systems.

Though I guess we'll see, I am hoping that adoption rates of 10 are so low that they have to keep supporting 7 anyway.

10 is better than 7, but you don't want to upgrade because they're making you do it.

That's not a judgment -- that's why I don't do most things -- just an observation.

I won't move to 10 until games start requiring 10. I put off moving from XP to 7 until Phantasy Star Online 2 required Windows 7.

pinback wrote:10 is better than 7, but you don't want to upgrade because they're making you do it.

That's not a judgment -- that's why I don't do most things -- just an observation.

What amazes me, what absolutely AMAZES me is that you told me once that some dickhead working in a big box computer store told you that Windows 8 (or, if not 8, close to it) would "automatically install and download" for you. Which was laughable to us at the time. We laughed! (This was years ago.) I put this nonsense in the Cryptozookeeper novella because it was hilarious to me.

THEN IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED WITH 10.

And that dickhead went on to become...

https://news.microsoft.com/exec/terry-myerson/

I don't know. 7, 8, 10, looks all the same to me. Dunno why people get upset about it.

I double-click on an icon, it starts the program. That's all I care about.

So you wouldn't necessarily consider yourself a "power user"?

pinback wrote:So you wouldn't necessarily consider yourself a "power user"?

I'm not even sure what that means. I'm hearing it all the time.

What *is* a power user?

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:In all seriousness, I'd totally install it someplace. Just separate from the computer I get work done with, due to the normal headaches that involve upgrading an operating system.

Back around when Windows 98 came out, or it might have even been with '95, I had a nickname for having to reinstall an operating system.

I called it "The Death Penalty" because it really was the ultimate punishment.

RealNC wrote:

pinback wrote:So you wouldn't necessarily consider yourself a "power user"?

I'm not even sure what that means. I'm hearing it all the time.

What *is* a power user?

Someone who keeps having to cycle the power on their machine because Windows keeps locking up and freezing the machine!

In order to play Far Cry 3 through Steam, you have to login with your Uplay account.

In order to play Max Payne 3 through Steam, you have to login with your Rockstar account.

If you fail to put the correct Rockstar password in three times -- keep in mind, this is being done THROUGH STEAM -- the great stupid idiots at Rockstar put up a fucking captcha.

I know they are doing that because they are just relaying their website, but it's 1) stupid to have me login to the Rockstar Social Network through a game I bought on Steam and 2) stupid to put a goddamn captcha in when trying to authenticate THROUGH STEAM.

The Pirate Bay welcomes you.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: But you get that it's also a made-up circular requirement, right? "We made this OS that can only run the latest DirectX. DirectX can only run on the latest OS." Microsoft can write an entire OS but back-porting DirectX to 7, nope, can't be done. Come on.

Let's say a new copy of the operating system brings Micro$oft an average of $100 (after costs) since OEM copes are much less than this and retail and upgrade copies are much more. On 100 million PCs worldwide, that's ten billion dollars in profit.

Each copy not upgraded return 0 dollars in profit.

You do the math.