News Behind the scenes with Windows 7

[Hielor]

As I said, you are talking about past days

If you want to play Doom 3 for example, you just need to copy the 5 pk4 files from the Doom DVD (or CD's) into the Doom 3 base folder and that's it. The loki software enables you to just hit the exe and start the game like in Windows. Almost the same for World of Warcraft for example. Just install it from CD or even use the Blizzard web installer (using wine), like you do it in Windows. Edit the config and the registry (takes just 2-3 minutes) and that's it.

Right, none of which is as smooth or easy as it is on Windows.

That's another Microsoft monopoly, widely used by lazy developers who feel comfortable to use what's already there and which already offers a big market.

Oh no! Developers are using a well-established, well-known, widely-used API developed and supported by one of the world's largest software companies, which makes their job easier and allows exposure to the vast majority of people using desktops! How terrible! What they're doing should be illegal!

Wait. What? What they're doing is called smart.

It would be no problem to develope such a platform also for Linux.

Really? Then why hasn't it been done already? How about: Linux developers don't care about gaming? Or maybe it's not as easy as you think?

And to be honest, with a good machine you don't really see a big difference between playing it in Windows or Linux these days already .

What about the newest games that really stress hardware? GTAIV, Crysis, etc. Doom 3 is like...four years old. If not more.

If you have crapy hardware, it also does not run well in Windows. I have no problems in Windows but Linux as well. It is mostly just missing registry entries which slows down the game. All in all, games on Linux would be no big deal, would Microsoft not play the big monopoly.

You've been throwing this word "monopoly" around a lot--let's get this straight. "Monopoly" is a legal term, and you clearly have no understanding of what it means. Just being the most widely used OS doesn't make a company a monopoly. Plus, if Microsoft and Windows are so evil, why do companies still sell machines with Windows? If Linux is really so much better in every possible way, why hasn't it taken Windows' place? The penguin-worshipping anarchist zealots have been predicting the overthrow of Windows by Linux for a decade now, and it still hasn't happened. In fact, Linux hasn't even managed to overthrow Mac for second place.

The sales and communities/forums of different aircraft developers (who are partly way more as ten times as big as the orbiter community) talk a different language.

Imagine that. The forums of the aircraft developers contain mostly people who buy aircraft from aircraft developers. What a shocker.

If I start counting, I get 9 professional aircraft addons only for FS2004 (from single piston engine up to the PMDG 747-400)

Good for you. For $35 you could go buy FSX Deluxe and the expansion pack, which combined have something like 30 (or more) planes.

Those who buy not more than one, or none, are those who instead play missions and multiplayer. And regarding the communties I know of, and the big payware market for MSFS, I think that those fun-users are not the big majority.

Also those who use it as a sandbox. And once again, of course the communities you know of are full of people who are much more serious simmers. Think about why. You're smart, you can figure it out.

That's not why the majority buys and uses MS FS. Training and missions and multiplayer is something that is mostly done by kiddies or people who just want to have fun in a way they have with other games too.

I believe that there have been more than 1 million copies of FSX sold. I would be willing to bet that if you added up all of the people who've bought addons, it wouldn't even come close.

Plus, I resent your implication that I'm a "kiddie" just because I don't have time to devote my life to serious flight simming (yet--I'm working on that ).

Sure, you can connect pedals, throttles and such stuff to it as well. But I actually mean one-on-one Boeing and Airbus replica hardware for professional simulators at home, in conjunction with project magenta and FSUIPC. You would have a hard time trying to use X-Plane...

Thank you for proving my point.

Well, why do I need a Windows XP Mode while XP already fully performs my demands and makes Vista (but also 7) already totally dispensable? I already can run Windows XP in Linux without any Micrsosoft extra mode

And even more: what does Windows Vista or 7 enables me to do (beside some game compatibility) the latest Linux Ubuntu does not offer?...

Nah. For me the Windows era is going to end by WinXP.

I feel no reason to enumerate a list of all the new features in 7, since you can easily find a description of all of them online.

What's more: Next month, Win7 RC becomes publicly availble. What that means is that you can go get and try out a fully-featured OS for free (with the caveat that it will expire at some point).

Worst-case scenario, you end up with more ammo for your windows-bashing and have spent some bandwidth and time. But hey, I know the time isn't an issue for you, since you're a Linux person, and Linux people love nothing more than spending time with their computer trying to figure out why Firefox won't work (since the Linux version has external dependencies that aren't listed anywhere).

 

[Artlav]

I really am not understanding how you can say that computers have not improved in the last ten years when they've increased in capability by orders of magnitude, but that internal combustion engines are "better" now and therefore new.

I didn't say it.
I said that IC engines improved, but there are nothing new, because they are still gasoline in, smell and rotation out.
I said that computers improved, but they are not chnaged enough to be significantly new.

Quantitative improvement = improvement.
Qualitative improvement = new.

Not always. Something new can have a new set of issues. For example, hydrogen-fueled cars have the minor issue that there's no place to get hydrogen fuel.

That is why i seem to "moving the line". An idea is on for some purpose, like a car running on hydrogen is for replacing gasoline cars.
To make a hydrogen - powered car is one idea, to make one that can replace old cars is another.
More on that below.

About not always - always. Anything new will be better than what was before. It might take some time to clean out the issues, or even skip a few ideas forward, but the net effect is better.

For flight simulators, realism is what's fun. Flight simulators in 1999 were no where near as realistic as they are now, in flight model, ATC interaction, AI, and graphics. Therefore, for me, they are less fun.

It feels like you're thinking in terms of what if you had to switch to 1999 computer right now? Remember what it was back then. Did you have more/less/same/no fun back then?

Er, what? The rocket that gets to orbit is just an improvement on the rocket that didn't get to orbit.

You're doublethinking. At what point do you make the distinction between something "new" and something that's not new? You say that a game like Doom 3, which featured dynamic lighting (not used extensively before in a game) and a custom engine, is not new (just an improvement); yet you say that rocket B which can get to orbit is a totally new thing when it's just a bigger version of rocket A which can't get to orbit.

You're moving the line around to suit your own purposes, which makes it very difficult to figure out what you're talking about.

Sounds more like some word-level mishmashed miscommunications are going on. I've clarified ambiguity between improved and new above (i hope).

For the idea and working idea ambiguity:
How do you defined a rocket that can get into orbit?
A firework won't get into orbit however big it is.
Some engine designs won't scale.
Guidance systems are needed that will do the job.
Trajectories must be designed.
Rockets slowly or quickly improve, until at one point we have a system that, if scaled right, can reach orbit.
The new idea is not "rocket that can", the new idea is "get into orbit". Put a system together that have a qualitatively new feature - getting into orbit.

So, Doom 3 with it's improved graphics is still only an improvement over Quake - you still move around shooting stuff, using mostly the same keys and mouse and not seeing your legs. Like a new book in sub-genre, where you have a good idea of what will come next.

Does that clear things out?

 

[Hielor]

It feels like you're thinking in terms of what if you had to switch to 1999 computer right now? Remember what it was back then. Did you have more/less/same/no fun back then?

We're not "back then" anymore. We're now.

For the idea and working idea ambiguity:
How do you defined a rocket that can get into orbit?
A firework won't get into orbit however big it is.
Some engine designs won't scale.
Guidance systems are needed that will do the job.
Trajectories must be designed.
Rockets slowly or quickly improve, until at one point we have a system that, if scaled right, can reach orbit.
The new idea is not "rocket that can", the new idea is "get into orbit". Put a system together that have a qualitatively new feature - getting into orbit.

So, Doom 3 with it's improved graphics is still only an improvement over Quake - you still move around shooting stuff, using mostly the same keys and mouse and not seeing your legs. Like a new book in sub-genre, where you have a good idea of what will come next.

Does that clear things out?

"Getting into orbit" as a qualitative goal can be stated quantitatively as improvements--make your rocket go higher, faster, and more accurately follow a trajectory. Running Doom 3 can equally well be stated as a qualitative goal--make a program which can have multiple realistic lights in a scene, without raytracing.

 

[Artlav]

We're not "back then" anymore. We're now.

If we only consider now, improvement loses it's definition.

"Getting into orbit" as a qualitative goal can be stated quantitatively as improvements--make your rocket go higher, faster, and more accurately follow a trajectory. Running Doom 3 can equally well be stated as a qualitative goal--make a program which can have multiple realistic lights in a scene, without raytracing.

Anything can be stated quantitatively if you think that way - just make the atoms better follow the trajectories.
Same, anything can be stated qualitatively.

We need a point of reference of some sort to get these words to make sense - a rocket that crashed at antipodes might be about the same that the rocket that reached orbit from engineering point of view. From a point of view one level up, first rocket is just another rocket test, and second rocket did something that wasn't done before. First improved, second done a new thing.

From a programmer point of view, there are some new combination of mostly old ideas that are made possible to run at real time by steady improvement of computers. From a user point of view, it's just another shooting game that works about the same as Quake, but takes more power.

For that last point of view are the arguments that not much new software was made.
-Orbiter allows you to play with space flight in a way nothing could before.
-Garry's mod and Phun allows you to play with phisics in a way you couldn't before.
-Google Earth gives access to pictures of any place on Earth that was impossible to get hands on easily before.

And so on.