----- Original Message ----- From: "Derek D. Martin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "gnhlug" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, August 12, 2002 11:56 PM Subject: Re: 'My favorite platform' debate (was: Rack Mount Servers)
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > At some point hitherto, Rich Cloutier hath spake thusly: > > > think the largest influence was by far had by the gaming industry. > > > > ...and I have to disagree to some extent with that. > > > > While the gaming industry has forced hardware manufacturers to push the > > limit on 3d rendering and animation speeds, which translate into fast GPUs, > > and hardware acceleration, it is the GUI environment (Windows) that has > > pushed for acres of screen real estate, ie., 1600x1280 desktops, multiple > > monitors, and so forth. > > I still have to disagree with this. It was the gaming industry that > pushed the early PC graphics adaptors from CGA to EGA and then to VGA, > with the desire for ever sharper and more colorful game details. In the beginning, that may be true. However, Windows, for those who don't remember, was initially just a GUI front end to a Desktop Publishing program called Pagemaker, which was not even developed by Microsoft. Game developers, at that time, were torn between whether to use raster graphics or vector graphics. It was Microsoft's desire to have a graphical OS like the Xerox PARC system and the Mac, that forced every PC manufacturer to put in higher and higher resolution video cards to support the colorful desktops. > It > was the gaming industry that created a demand for sound cards with > respectable digital sound effects and music synthesis at commodity > prices. It was the advent of first-person shooter games, like Castle > Wolfenstien in 1992 and Doom in 1993, that pushed those resolutions to > be fed faster, and then with other games to go further to 1024x768 for > still crisper graphics with the advent of such games as Quake I in > 1996. At that point, I believe the majority of non-gaming Windows > users were still using Windows at 640x480@256 colors or less... The majority of gaming AND non-gaming Windows users are still using 1024x768 @ 16 bpp color or less. Most gamers don't play beyond 1024x768 @ 16bpp. It is the power Windows users who have massive spreadsheets, full page documents and marketing brochures in full color, huge CAD files, and 3d rendering and animation (all converts from UNIX workstations) that demand 32 bpp color and insane resolutions like 3200x1200 on two or more monitors. > > At the time, I was working at UPS in field support, and we'd only just > started to switch people from our DOS-based shipping program to a > Windows one. I installed this product on shipping systems for a fair > number of our customers, and the systems almost always ran at > 640x480x256. Many businesses were still primarily using DOS-based > applications at that time, and were only just beginning to switch to > Windows. Graphics cards of the time which were able to do higher > resolutions were comparitively expensive. > > Even today, if you walk around the office where you work, I suspect > that you'll find a majority of users still use a desktop size of > 1024x768. This has been the case everywhere I've worked, period. > Some users actually still used 800x600, because of eye strain issues. Yes, I'll agree that eye strain is a limiting factor, mostly because corporations are too cheap to buy really GOOD monitors. Even a 17 inch MAG monitor will strain your eyes after an hour or two at 1024x768. Another reason is that most users simply DON'T KNOW HOW to increase the resolution or color depth over what the Windows default installation is (NEVER more than 1024x768 and more often 800x600.) Of course these users and their bosses are NOT the ones buying the GeForce and Matrox video cards or the 19" or 21" CRTs or the 16" digital flat panels. > > For the most part, high-res desktops are still to this day relegated > to Geeks Like Us (TM), or to those with specialized needs (i.e. CAD > designers, publishers, and similar). Were it not for the gaming > industry, decent sound hardware would probably still be substantially > more expensive, being relegated to musicians, sound effects people, > and other similar special needs groups. Here you are correct. Sound cards were developed for, and are used mostly by, gamers. Musicians use specialized sound hardware to reproduce the music; they only use the PC to compose and edit the material. When it comes time for reproduction, it gets fed into very high-end, specialized reproduction equipment. It doesn't come out the sound card. > > > And it is the fact that we do not really have a true Real Time Operating > > System that has caused massive increases in CPU horsepower, disk speeds, and > > gobs of RAM in order to play back audio and video files without skipping, > > making it SEEM like we have real time capabilities, when in fact we do not. > > Use DOS. It might not be a truly real time OS; but since it doesn't > multitask, close enough. Where can I get a DOS DVD player or a DOS sound editor program? For that matter, where can I get ANY DOS programs now? For that matter, where can I get ANY real time programs for an x86 PC on ANY operating system? (without going custom.) The fact of the matter is, all those programs are Windows based (or at least WERE until Linux.) And one kid I know actually complains that his P4 system can't play an audio CD, watch TV (ATI All-in-wonder) surf the web, and chat with his friends all at the same time. So he wants a faster computer. Not because he can't play games; his system is perfectly capable of that, but because when he does all that, his audio CD skips. And it's because the OS is not real time. How does the problem get solved? Throw more hardware at it. A true real time OS COULD indeed play that audio CD without skipping and do the other stuff too. > > The reason CPU power has increased so quickly is again, because of the > gaming industry. If this were not true, why did processors on other > platforms (Unix systems, for example) which do not typically play > games grow so slowly by comparison? Because those platforms, for the most part, were servers that ran NO or very low resolution GUIs, and did no graphics-intensive work like photo editing or CAD. The workstations got replaced by PCs because the hardware was so much cheaper, and could finally keep up. No manager could justify a $10,000 workstation when a $4,000 PC would do just as well. Plus the PC could be used for general office work too. No more running back and forth between the workstation and the PC to get one's work done. > Only fairly recently, after > realizing that PCs had gotten so powerful as to be able to outperform > their expensive hardware have Unix vendors' CPUs started to catch up > to PC CPUs. > > It's all about the games baby! =8^) I agree that games do play a big role in PC hardware development, but they are NOT the whole story. Not by a long shot. Besides, if hardware development was JUST due to the gaming industry, why then don't we have more powerful dedicated game consoles instead of more powerful PCs? Rich Cloutier SYSTEM SUPPORT SERVICES President, C*O www.sysupport.com _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
