· Content
· News
· Articles
· Mailinglists
· Knowledgebase
· Trouble Tickets
· Files
· Glossary
· Links
· Compatibility Lists
· Forums
Welcome to our website
To take full advantage of all features you need to login or register. Registration is completely free and takes only a few seconds.
Comparing Windows Vista Beta 1 to OS X 10.4 "Tiger"
Posted by: duke on: 09/01/2005 02:27 PM [ Print | 23 comment(s) ]
SuperSite for Windows has posted a comparison of Windows Vista Beta 1 with OS X 10.4 "Tiger".
Windows Vista Beta 1 closes the gap, though I don't think the beta Aero UI we're seeing now is quite as nice looking as Tiger's Aqua. In Vista Beta 1, Microsoft has added a number of visual effects that Mac users have enjoyed for four years, including translucencies, high-resolution icons, and animation effects that are both attractive and functional.You can read the comparison in its entirety over here.
« ECS ships dual AMD-Intel mobo · Comparing Windows Vista Beta 1 to OS X 10.4 "Tiger"
· Intel EOLs 533MHz FSB Xeon CPUs »
Comment
|
rmn oh my, it's huge! Posts: 6013 Joined: 2002-01-26 |
#37813 Posted on: 09/01/2005 07:48 PM
You know Apple and Microsoft are both being driven by their marketing departments when the competition boils down to "visual effects and transparencies". :rolleyes: RMN ~~~ |
Comment
|
stmok23 Registered User Posts: 798 Joined: 2002-02-02 |
#37814 Posted on: 09/01/2005 08:16 PM
Is anyone getting tired of these: "Linux vs Windows" OR "Vista vs OS X" comparisons? Sempron (Socket 754): 2x Abit NF8-V (nForce3 250Gb) and ASRock K8SLI-eSATA2 (ULi M1697) Dual CPU love: Supermicro P6DBE (i440BX), PIIIDRE (i840), 2x PIIIDR3 (i840), 4x ASUS P3C-D (i820), and ACorp 6A815EPD1 (i815EP) OSs?: Linux, Solaris and BSDs. |
Comment
|
daniel178 Registered User Posts: 359 Joined: 2001-01-10 |
#37815 Posted on: 09/01/2005 09:40 PM
i just dont get why people are comparing a BETA version (B1, even) with an OS that has been commercially available for a long time now.... :rolleyes: |
Comment
|
Vuke69 Bitpimp Posts: 377 Joined: 2001-03-16 |
#37816 Posted on: 09/01/2005 10:54 PM
But does any microsoft software really ever leave beta? |
Comment
|
daniel178 Registered User Posts: 359 Joined: 2001-01-10 |
#37817 Posted on: 09/01/2005 11:52 PM
Actually, one of the big points in that article (that I happen to agree with) was that Microsoft's beta products change a LOT when they are finally released. In comparison to Apple, where from the time Steve Jobs announces a product during a keynote or something, not much changes to when it hits stores. |
Comment
|
rmn oh my, it's huge! Posts: 6013 Joined: 2002-01-26 |
#37818 Posted on: 09/02/2005 01:46 AM
But that's because Apple products are perfect as soon as they leave Steve Jobs' mouth. No? RMN ~~~ |
Comment
|
i_wolf labhair dom as gaelige Posts: 2097 Joined: 2002-11-19 |
#37819 Posted on: 09/02/2005 06:14 AM
HA! Tiger was buggy as hell when it was first announced by Steve Jobs at WWDC2k4. At the time the company I was then working for had different beta releases on a month by month schedule and it only really started to come together possiblly about 3- 4 months before its release IMHO. This meant that more bugs than I would consider acceptable made it into release x.4.0. X.4.0 felt more like a late beta version than a release candidate. X.4.1 should have been the first release candidate... they can be proud of that one. As for comparing a buggy non finished beta version of an OS that is nowhere near finished with a post release OS is beyond me. Yes there are lots of borrowed ideas in Longhorn, but IMHO thats not necessarily such a bad thing. Cross pollination of good ideas is a good thing when they are implemented well and added to in new ways. It also bothers me that so much time was spent on the GUI aspect. The author should have even delved deeper into the technologies that make Tigers display engine so powerful... Quartz, Quartz 2D Extreme, Core Video, Core Image etc.. Likewise with longhorn I get the feeling this 'review' was done for web page hits than anything else :rolleyes:
As a software developer I can tell you this is a very VERY good thing. An API freeze and feature freeze is necessary for developers like myself to work with a new unreleased OS. Bolting bits and pieces unnecessarily on after a product beta announcement has been made is crazy. Tiger had hit a feature and primary design freeze when it was announced. Developers could be confident of what final product would likely be like. I wish MS would do the same... it would make life much much easier. Hung like a donkey. Go like a horse! |
Comment
|
tsmithf SMP Newbie Posts: 1 Joined: 2005-09-02 |
#37820 Posted on: 09/02/2005 05:35 PM
I'm sure, like anybody who actually uses their computer to work, the relative merits of translucent icons or animations is completely irrelevant. The very first thing I do on a new PC is turn off every effect and all the unnecessary visual junk I can find. Why do they keep adding all this crap I often wonder, it just slows everything down, fading toolbars drive me nuts, personalised menus irritate me and pointless bigger brighter icons seem to be solely aimed at the Nintendo generation. An accusation I think is easier to direct at Apple despite the reviewers claim of the XP Fisher Price look. They obviously need to justify the continued demand for newer faster processors, however I prefer to reserve the much needed clock cycles for my work. As for the development of better faster searches, I partly agree with the Microsoft claim that you shouldn |
Comment
|
jano Registered User Posts: 1710 Joined: 2000-12-02 |
#37821 Posted on: 09/02/2005 07:50 PM
Unfortunatley, the concept of "Files" and "heirarchical oraganization" for the majority of users is a bit to abstract. I fear the effects of trying to edumacate non-technical users how to use the search engine, dear lord.. :rolleyes: What's the smallest suitcase needed to hold 100,000 dollar bills? $ |
Comment
|
i_wolf labhair dom as gaelige Posts: 2097 Joined: 2002-11-19 |
#37822 Posted on: 09/03/2005 06:20 AM
I'm not sure if you have read 'HCI by Jenny Preece et al' (I always quote that book when this topic comes up. In it they have conducted many an experiment and research in to good GUI and HCI design. Considering that for the majority of users their machines are ticking idle at the best of times, it has been shown that users are more productive given a good GUI and good design. Most of the burden of Aqua and Windows Longhorn's graphical effects is taken care of by the graphics card anyway. Getting back to Jenny Preece's book, they have also shown than an attractive user interface is essential to overcoming the 'intimidation factor' most non technical users experience when placed in front of a computer. I'm reluctant to comment on Aero since it is not finished yet and its likely to change in the final product, but certainly Aqua has brought many a nice HCI improvement thanks to its graphical bells and whistles. Personally I use Expose and dashboard very often and it is often difficult to move back across to a win xp box that doesn't natively have this technology available to it... ive tried window blinds etc... I'm really looking forward to Vista as a result. I found these types of technologies to really speed up my workflow. Incidentally I should point out I'm a guy that grew up on DOS and practically lives at the terminal for quite a bit of my work. I just personally feel that a good 'bloated' (some would say) GUI and terminal access can happily coexist. The shock of it! Hung like a donkey. Go like a horse! |
Comment
|
cmost Back in St. Olaf.... Posts: 416 Joined: 2002-08-13 |
#37823 Posted on: 09/03/2005 08:12 AM
Pure hogwash! Let a novice user choose between a default Windows 95 desktop and this new Vista desktop and see which one s/he finds less intimidating, and immediately useable. I refuse to believe that simplicity takes a back seat to whiz-bang speical effects in terms of usefulness to non-techie type users. While it might be true that one might be attracted by the flash and glamor of an aero-enhanced desktop, it's much more likely that one can get productive immediately with the simplicity of a Windows 95 desktop. I'd be willing to bet money on it! AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 4096 MB DDR 400MHz DDR2 RAM GeForce 9400 GT w 512 MB DDR2 Primary OS: Parsix GNU/Linux (built from Debian Testing) Compiz-Fusion Git Other OS: Windows Server 2003 SP2 (as workstation); Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs; Windows XP Pro. SP3 - via VirtualBox |
Comment
|
rmn oh my, it's huge! Posts: 6013 Joined: 2002-01-26 |
#37824 Posted on: 09/03/2005 08:41 AM
I vote we go back to black & white GEM! :rolleyes: RMN ~~~ |
Comment
|
Vuke69 Bitpimp Posts: 377 Joined: 2001-03-16 |
#37825 Posted on: 09/03/2005 08:47 AM
I couldn't live without a good GUI... It (at 1920x1200) allows me to have six xterms open and visible at the same time, which is where I get the bulk of my day to day work done. Not having that, plus being able to also have evolution ,firefox, and gaim up in the background, would seriously slow me down. |
Comment
|
terminalrecluse is home now Posts: 3802 Joined: 2004-08-07 |
#37826 Posted on: 09/03/2005 10:33 AM
i_wolf: What is it about the Apple platform (the OS, OSX, or the cpu, PPC 970 or some combination of both) that has it rendering much less frames per second even when powered by the likes of a 6800ultra? I've seen countless times on anandtech.com and such that even with a decent video card >9800pro the frames are much less per second when compared to an x86 machine. Why is that? One would expect that an OpenGL game to run just as fast minus any hardware issues, but run just as fast on any machine with OpenGL. I could be way off base here but ... any ideas? 121 total Ghz, 304GB in total memory... Arch Linux - stable : 3930k @ 4.4Ghz, 64GB DDR3, 120GB Samsung 840, HX850 DAS - Norco 4020 - 20x Seagate 3TB, 1KW PSU FBSD 10 ZFS server - SM Chassis, SM X8DTE, 2x L5520 Xeons, 48GB Reg DDR3 ULP, IBM 5015 w/ 512MB DDR2 cache, RAID-50 - 42TB storage Dell C6100 - 4 nodes, 2 1.1KW psu's, 2x L5520s, 6x e5530s, 192GB reg DDR3 (48GB each), F@H, etc |
Comment
|
Blakhart Registered User Posts: 4125 Joined: 2002-04-16 |
#37827 Posted on: 09/03/2005 09:41 PM
Unneeded fluf, to fool the masses that they need this os, the fisher price os of the future. I set most every box I am responsible for to the standard windows classic desktop. Faster on the grafix card, easier to use, and lowest resource use. X is a nice os tho, but so is the core bsd. Anyway, all seem to be gravitating to the fisher price, I'm functionaly illiterate and need the childish images to operate this computer desktop.  Nexus7 enhanced combat/pleasure model. |
Comment
|
i_wolf labhair dom as gaelige Posts: 2097 Joined: 2002-11-19 |
#37828 Posted on: 09/03/2005 10:57 PM
Have you read the book ? Have you seen the many links provided to independent examinations etc... ? Yes more attractive icons, better drawn icons etc.. allow users to create reliable metaphors in their head between the icons they see on screen and the action implied by their use. Classic example is the trash can/recycle bin. That thing in windows 95 did not look remotely like a trash can. Furthermore it has been shown that an attractive welcoming desktop environment can help with easing a new user into a new OS. Huge scientific studies have been done even down to the choice of default colour for the desktop on a newly installed OS. That thing in windows 95 did not look remotely like a trash can. This argument does not pertain solely to OS X and Vista but to all Operating systems. Experiments were conducted originally with the very first desktop at Xerox labs who found the accuracy and time required for day to day operations were sped up as a result of the GUI. Possibly (IMHO) the reason why GUI's and attractive GUI's are so useful is because as humans we do not think in terms of 1's and 0's, black and white, lines of text. The human cognitive process learns and adapts by abstracting the concepts put infront of us. Pretty much in every form of life. For example (and this is one I've stolen from Jenny Preece's book). Were I to ask you to tell me the number of windows in your house, most likely you would draw a mental model of the house in your head, then walk around each room in your head counting the different windows. Its this ability to abstract that allows GUI's to potentially speed up your workflow. To reiterate, I think that a good GUI with all the useful bells and whistles today can coexist with the terminal. It doesn't have to be a case of either GUI or terminal unless you are over at slashdot 
Today , things like a scalable dock in OS X... look pretty sure... but also have a real world use.... they allow you to use your desktop space more efficiently, and are beneficial to those who are hard of eyesight. Expose is another useful concept. Both I would be quite happy to see in Vista. Judging by the number of themes and efforts to mimic these technologies over at kdelook.org it would appear quite a few people in the open source community are thinking along the same lines. Personally I really don't get some of the arguments againts GUI's, bells and whistles , Operating systems today, the works etc.. Particularly I don't understand the arguments against Operating systems when people say one operating system is bloated because sitting idle it is using half of your memory. Personally I couldn't give a crap once it releases whatever memory is required when I require it. Its quite humbling to see the amount of computing power that is sitting on the most non tech savvy users desk when they buy even a 500 euro Dell. I have absolutely nothing against pushing both the graphical and functional boundaries in operating systems. I'll still need the terminal for certain things ....
Incidentally most of the bells and whistles you see in Aqua are 'for free' since they are catered for by the graphics card... which has taken on more and more responsability for the rendering since jaguar. The same approach is going to be adopted by MS. In fact this appraoch means the main CPU has a lot more time free for it to do other things... it also provides for a great graphical architecture that can be used by developers of Vid Editing apps (Core Video), Image Editing (Core Image) etc... whereby the graphics card and perform image and video filters at speeds rediculously faster than the main processor has traditionally been able to apply them.
A combination of a few things. Originally Quake 3 when it was first released was running slower than the PC version... John Carmack at the time stepped in and actually optimized it around the then PPC architecture and it was faster for a period of time. It has long since been eclipsed by todays fastest PC behemoths. But I believe the probs with Doom3 is down to quite a few things... Some of the Open GL API's have not been implemented as well under OS X as they should have been. You only have to look at Maya performance presently. Judging by the job postings at Apple and recent acquisition of some of the talent from nVidia and ATI this would likely be a potential reason. At this years WWDC Apple were demonstrating the performance improvments they have been making in this regard. To demonstrate this point they some basic code and ran it on the same configured hardware both on Panther and Tiger. The same demo was possiblly 30% faster on the Tiger box. They expect performance to continually improve in this regard. If you look at barefeats , they have concluded that with each '.' release of Tiger there have been small improvements to 3d performance. I believe a while back one of the senior engineers with aspyr alluded to improvements being needed in this regard. There are other reasons why fast hardware performs subpar. The level of optimization for x86 in a modern game means that when you port it (especially in a limited time frame) it is difficult to apply the same level of optimization for a PPC port... and why should they.... the Mac platform and particularly the Mac gaming market is tiny in comparison. Most PPC apps can and could perform very very well if time was put into optimizing them. For example , little things like casting between an int and a float can cause a stall on the PPC970 but would be non problematic on an x86 machine. There are numerous little things like this... idiosynchrasies between platforms that mean that code that is written well for one platform will perform lousy on another. You could also look at the compilers used to generate the mac version... Most apprs presently on the Mac are compiled with GCC 3.3. When you have a game that is compiled for x86 under ICC and another app that is compiled for the Mac without using a fast compiler you will get a performance hit. Finally I believe another reason for subpar performance is the quality of drivers. On a windows platform the graphics card drivers are most of the time (assuming consumer level card) game orientated. On a mac platform the drivers are not as game orientated. Although I would imagine again with the recent poachings of talen from ATI and nVidia this could improve. Again without seeing the code, making any excuses or knowing how they compiled etc.. these are reasons why I believe Doom3 would likely have performed crap on the Mac. Looking at it now, im going to do a double back flip and say I think that for a lot of developers the move to x86 will provide massive performance improvments... graphics card drivers from ATI and nVidia can potentially share a relatively common codebase with the windows x86 Open GL parts. Apple will acquire the use of ICC and a significantly faster GCC for x86 than the PPC version. Porting will not be as much an issue... developers will and (in theory) only have to worry about API changes. What x86 optimizations have been made, should hopefully carry over etc... Hung like a donkey. Go like a horse! |
Comment
|
cmost Back in St. Olaf.... Posts: 416 Joined: 2002-08-13 |
#37829 Posted on: 09/04/2005 02:45 AM
i_wolf, have you read this thread? Don't believe everything you read. I don't care what the so called studies show. I do know what my clients tell me and what I see every day. People like to be entertained by the animated icons and translucent windows and whiz-bang transitions, but when they need to really get down to business they like plain and simple. Most of my clients actually request that all the themes and special effects be turned off because they claim it's distracting to their employees and they don't want them losing focus from their work. Home users might prefer the special effects, but a lot of business users want the vanilla desktop.
More than likely, there is some clandestine partnership going on between Microsoft and the OEM's. If they produce a more power hundry OS, then corporates will have to upgrade their hardware along with their software to meet the new system requirements. This way everyone "wins" (except for the poor businesses of course.) Vista will offer little more functionality than XP currently has already. The only reason to upgrade will be to gain the purported improvements in security. AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 4096 MB DDR 400MHz DDR2 RAM GeForce 9400 GT w 512 MB DDR2 Primary OS: Parsix GNU/Linux (built from Debian Testing) Compiz-Fusion Git Other OS: Windows Server 2003 SP2 (as workstation); Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs; Windows XP Pro. SP3 - via VirtualBox |
Comment
|
Murdock Captain Posts: 1398 Joined: 2001-07-02 |
#37830 Posted on: 09/04/2005 10:06 AM
i_wolf, I think the assumption that you are making is that we are talking about "good" GUIs with "good" bells and whistles. Drawing icons that better mimic what they represent doesn't require a lot of system resources. But that's not what we're talking about (okay, that's not what I'm thinking of anyway) Explain to me how a @$% animated dog helps me search for a document? Explain to me how ambigiously drawn objects are easier to click on compared to objects that have well defined borders. Explain to me how menus that are designed to be unresponsive (i.e. animated) help the user? Explain to me how transpariencies make a GUI more intuitive? I have taught hundreds of computer classes, most of which were to people with little to no computer experience. With *very* few exceptions, people had a much easier time navigating through the the Win98/2000 GUI than they did with the "standard" XP GUI. I make it a point to turn off *all* of the "visual enhancements" in WinXP (except font smoothing) before I teach any classes on XP machines now. I don't think all of the things that MS is doing with Vista will be bad, but I think most of it is definately unnecessary. For "advanced" users some of them may be quite helpful, but by in large, I don't think it will do much for "typical" users. Best I can figure the only time "transparent" and "GUI" should be in the same sentence is if you're making the point that you shouldn't notice the GUI. In that context, I think the GUI should be transparent. It shouldn't be the focus of the computer. Ideally the perfect GUI would be completely transparent. You shouldn't even know it's there. You should be able to focus on the apps/docs you're working on. I used to be "the sound guy" for my school, church, and a few gigs on the side. If I did my job right, no one had any idea that I did my job at all. Only if I f-ed up did any body pay attention. A GUI should be the same way, it shouldn't be the focus at all. Recently, I bought a set of power tools. Over the past week, I built a corner hutch. When I got done, I had a great looking hutch. When I finished, I didn't tell anyone how easy it was to build with my new tools. No one that looked at it said, "I bet you had some great tools to build that." or anything to that effect. That's because the focus isn't/shouldn't be on the the tools, but the project you're working on. If you like all of that stuff, more power to ya. Persoally, I don't like double-wide trailors, and I don't like double-wide start menus And since I have zero experience with Tiger, I'll leave the comments on that to the experts.The pathetic state of our government will never change unless we stop electing politicians and start electing public servants. Remember: There was once a time when the term "politician" had a very negative connotation. |
Comment
|
cmost Back in St. Olaf.... Posts: 416 Joined: 2002-08-13 |
#37831 Posted on: 09/04/2005 06:08 PM
Very well put Murdock!  AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 4096 MB DDR 400MHz DDR2 RAM GeForce 9400 GT w 512 MB DDR2 Primary OS: Parsix GNU/Linux (built from Debian Testing) Compiz-Fusion Git Other OS: Windows Server 2003 SP2 (as workstation); Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs; Windows XP Pro. SP3 - via VirtualBox |
Comment
|
i_wolf labhair dom as gaelige Posts: 2097 Joined: 2002-11-19 |
#37832 Posted on: 09/04/2005 07:07 PM
Well first of all murdock you are the first to provide concrete examples of what you deam to be unnecessary effects. Yes I agree the dog in windows is rediculous and in a professional environment makes the user feel they are being patronised by the OS. However this is not what I am talking about. I don't want to get into a mine is bigger than yours intellectual debate here. Yes the three of us here have worked and taught in a college environment.... having been there done that... not necessarily a good thing IMHO (why I got out of it, I'll leave for another thread).
Not necessarily, for example, look at the recycle bin from a windows 95 era machine, now compare and contrast with for example the trash can in OS X. Which one looks more like the type of bin you would see in an office or home environment ? Which affords its use as per the laws of affordance? Most likely you would suggest the OS X icon. Its lots of subtle graphical tricks that allow this type of icon to be more easily identifiable as a metaphor for something in the real world. Anti-aliasing , alpha blending and transparancy effects (and since its vector based) allows the icon to retain its clarity and meaning at any resolution. Thankfully this is now taken care of by the graphics card, otherwise it would be quite a performance hit. But consider there could be somebody hard of seeing utilising the magnifying glass in windows or zoom in OS X. Blow up an icon (in terms of size ) in windows and you will know what I am talking about. edges become pixillated and it is hard to make out what the icon actually is. Vista is going to provide technology like has been available in OS X for a number of years and I really believe it will be a good thing for those hard of seeing etc...
Again we are talking about 'good gui' design. The dog in windows XP should be put down without question.
I assume you are alluding to the gestalt laws ? Which ambiguously drawn objects are you talking about so that I can debate with you ?
Explain how they don't! We are not talking a 3 or 4 second wait for a menu to open (on todays even bottom of the line rediculously overpowered for joe bloggs every day needs machine). Even on a 3 year old machine , I have never found windows XP to take 3 or 4 seconds for a tool tip to fade in or a menu to fade in. What it does take is literally a fraction of a second, and , in that fraction of a second I would argue with you it has provided more information to the user as to which option this submenu is linked with. GUI design is all about providing information to the user.... read reliable and valuable information to the user. This is an effect I rather like on Windows 2000.
you said later in your post that you have never used Tiger. Allow me to provide a real world tangible example from Tiger. I am of course assuming that Aero will intelligently use these type of effects in the same way they are used under Tiger. I sometimes have to use a 12" laptop (at work I have sony [piece of crap]). Screen realistate for me is especially important on such a machine. Word under OS X, floating modal panals will become transparant after a period of inactivity (user configurable) such that they don't obscure view from the underlying document when you dont need them to. Hover the mouse back over the panel and they come to the foreground again. OS X can provide the same functionality for secondary windows and panels of an application. Believe me on small screen laptops, its a godsend. Again this is another feature I hope is utilised similarly under Aero.
Me too, but in my experience it really boils down to what users have grown up with. For example, if your first experience today is a Windows XP machine with the default look and feel, then surely you are going to feel confused suddenly being placed into a windows 2000, OS X, KDE environment. Personally I don't like the default colour scheme of Windows XP so I change it by default, nonetheless the option is there for users. The new start bar with the top 5 most recently launched apps is useful. To reiterate I don't like the default theme, I would agree personally that I don't find it very inviting , or welcoming. I find it patronising to be honest. All the same I do find the animated menu's to be useful for reasons I outlined earlier... especially when teaching the ECDL to a group of beginners. It allows them to visually see menu hierarchy. As visual creatures who rely upon associations and abstract visual representations I think animated menus again are a good thing.
If you can, and, as an experiment try to get your hands on a 12" laptop. Tell me that the example I mentioned earlier wouldn't be very useful to your onscreen realistate
I agreed entirely; this is why I think good and advanced GUI design can and should be pushing the boundaries forward , not staying static with the notion of 'sure isn't it good enough now'. I agree the GUI should make use of the computer transparant to the user, however we are not there yet. For example , has a manufacturer ever introduced an effect / technology that you could live without before but having used it , you find it very difficult to live without now ? For me that would have to be Expose under OS X. As a result of this , I now use Kompose under KDE and a windows blind effect to achieve the same functionality. There is a long way to go.
I don't like double wide start menu's either. However I do like having the top 5 most recently launched apps to hand. So it ends up being somewhat of a tradeoff. Visually I much prefer the old start menu look and feel, I do think it is superior. But the top 5 is very useful to me. Of course I could use the quicklanch bar, but then that looks very cluttered after a while and it is hard to find what you want.... !? Trade offs.... as I said before we are not there yet, but why not embrace and push the GUI technologies in that direction by using new approaches ?!
Vista's aero interface will be very different from the beta we have seen today, so probably best we come back to aero in 2006 or 2007 or em... eh ... 2008 or ....whenever the hell they release the damn thing
Kind Regards, i_wolf Hung like a donkey. Go like a horse! |
Comment
|
terminalrecluse is home now Posts: 3802 Joined: 2004-08-07 |
#37833 Posted on: 09/04/2005 07:19 PM
i_wolf: Thanks for the informative answer as to possible reasons and solutions to the Apple gaming problems. Once Apple switches to a Pentium M derived x86 cpu(s) I'll jump ship. 121 total Ghz, 304GB in total memory... Arch Linux - stable : 3930k @ 4.4Ghz, 64GB DDR3, 120GB Samsung 840, HX850 DAS - Norco 4020 - 20x Seagate 3TB, 1KW PSU FBSD 10 ZFS server - SM Chassis, SM X8DTE, 2x L5520 Xeons, 48GB Reg DDR3 ULP, IBM 5015 w/ 512MB DDR2 cache, RAID-50 - 42TB storage Dell C6100 - 4 nodes, 2 1.1KW psu's, 2x L5520s, 6x e5530s, 192GB reg DDR3 (48GB each), F@H, etc |
Comment
|
Murdock Captain Posts: 1398 Joined: 2001-07-02 |
#37834 Posted on: 09/04/2005 09:21 PM
I'll agree that the recycle bin didn't resemble one much back in the 95 days. I think MS was relying on the "recycle symbol" to relay the message for folks. I also think that it's better today, and probably provides for a better user experience. But it *is* possible to have a nice looking recycle bin that doesn't require a video card with a higher transistor count than my CPU. Pretty much every video card made in the past decade has decent if not spectacular 2D acceleration. I know we're not there yet, but it looks like we're moving in the direction of integrating the Quake engine, drawing a 3D wireframe and overlaying some snazy textures on top of it just to draw a recycle bin. The "XP" style things in general have everything rounded off, and smoothed to the point where it's difficult to tell where on object ends and the other begins. Moving/resizing things on the taskbar is much more difficult with the XP themes turned on. I'm all for a better, less intimidating GUI, but not at the expense of ease of use. In 9X/2000 evidently too may people kept accidentally moving their start menu around. MS's solution to this in XP was to "lock" the toolbar by default. Now the bar doesn't get moved accidentally, but it's far less intuitive. You have to know how to unlock the toolbar. Before you could just move it where you wished. (a little bit of a tangent their... sorry) The menu animation is more of a personal gripe, but I never have found animated menus to be more user friendly. I' happily admit I haven't found *any* setting to be particularly great for any of the MS menus... however it seems to me they are continually getting worse, not better. When screen realestate is limited there are all sorts of things you can do to better utilize your space, and transparencies is just one solution. You can "hide" a modal window just as easy as you can make one transparent, and you don't need anything special in the video card department. I'm certainly not trying to say that the GUI is good enough and that MS or anyone else shouldn't try to imptrove upon what they have... I just haven't seen anything that really gets me excited yet. (most of the things I've seen thus far I put into the "plasma TV" category. Like Plasma TVs they will make your firends go "Wow!" but you pay a terrible price for them, and after all is said and done, the quality still isn't as good as the older more refined technology) I hope to see things improve in the future. And there have been improvemts already, unfortunately most of them are overshadowed by a bunch of eyecandy. The pathetic state of our government will never change unless we stop electing politicians and start electing public servants. Remember: There was once a time when the term "politician" had a very negative connotation. |
Comment
|
LRSeriesIII Aspiring Rocket Scientist Posts: 1128 Joined: 2002-08-29 |
#37835 Posted on: 09/06/2005 01:11 AM
I agree with you 100% that the GUI should be "transparent," as you put it. However, I think that the GUI problems in Windows are due to plain old poor GUI design. It is sort of like giving a technically unskilled person free reign in a well-equipped shop woodworking shop and telling him to build that hutch. I can guaruntee the result will not be pretty. A bad GUI designer is guarunteed to give you a bad GUI, but if you hand him even more tools all you do is give him more new ways to make the GUI even worse. That doesn't make the tools themselves bad. Rather, using the tools in the wrong ways and in the wrong places is bad. If the person designing the GUI (or building the hutch, or whatever) is skilled, and approaches the design and construction process maturely (as opposed to "let's use our newest, bestest technology just because we can"), you really cannot go wrong giving him more powerful tools. When you have tools that are very limited, your result will not be a pure rendering of the designer's intent, but will instead reflect the limitations of the tools. A simple example of this would be pixelation of an image. An even better example is javascript. Javascript, when used poorly, can make a website extremely annoying in ways not possible with pure HTML. On the other hand, I have seen websites that use javascript more subtly to make the interface of the page easier to understand. If you weren't aware of the limitations of plain HTML, you would have no clue that any sort of extension was at work, because the way the page looks and acts just seems natural, almost obvious. I hope I have managed to clearly state my point somewhere in here. If I haven't, well, let me summarize: don't blame the tools, blame the designer. ->Computers ->Folding for team 3074 |