rec.autos.simulators

Yes, many people do do all these things at home.

Silly me, I suppose that's why millions of people also use them at
home for things like finishing up work (my mother makes spreadsheets
for scheduling shifts at her job on her PC, for example), or even
*gasp* just to write stuff for fun!  

While most Office programs don't have a real need at the normal home,
Word or another word processor is something that every computer should
have.  Hell, half the kids in college couldn't survive without a word
processing application on their PCs/laptops.  I truly doubt the
libraries would let them stay in them all night to write term papers
and such, especially with thousands of other students waiting to use
those same PCs..

And yes, simple word processing programs are part of office suites.

Consoles have had their drawing programs as well.  Mario Paint is an
example of one.  It's older, but it was on the SNES and used *gasp* a
mouse!

But music programs can make lives easier.  Setting up personalized
playlists without the hassle of having to remove and insert the data
medium the music is stored on is something I use extensively while I
am on my PC.

Add in the editing programs you can get, and practically anyone can
start mixing their own music.  And for a hell of a lot less than going
and buying DAT players, tapes, and mixing boards and such.

Didn't the Saturn have a word processing program for it?  I know you
could also set up the DC to run Word as well.  And both consoles had
keyboard peripherals, as well as mice.

No, that's not how they manage game saves.  They use flash RAM (for
memory cards) or a hard drive (in the Xbox's case).  Database programs
are what you use when you are setting up servers, and they are what
you access each time you go to a web page.  Programs like SQL, ISS,
etc.  Moron.

Both the Sega Saturn and the Sega Dreamcast could and did run email
programs, as well as web applications.  Try not to let it destroy you
that consoles are able to handle these simple things as well, Eugene.

Maybe for making home movies to send to grandma and grampa?  Perhaps
for just fun?  There's loads of cheap editing tools out there.  Next
you'll say that home video cameras are also something that no one
uses.

They're the right tools for their specific purposes.  You can't have
an Xbox, however, and expect to run PS2 or GC software on it.  As
closed source as Windows may be, consoles are even more closed source.
At least on the PC they can make the same game run no matter what sort
of hardware you have under the hood, and in many cases now the OS is
mattering less and less as well.

No one said PCs always had to be fun, Eugene.  *** PCs should be
fun.  Dedicated servers shouldn't be fun, they should be reliable and
able to run mission critical applications at all times.  Hardly any
fun involved in running mission critical applications, however.

I can get games up and running on my PC in under 5 minutes of opening
the game's CD.  Maybe if you got some better hardware, or maybe a
little actual knowledge of how you should install things, you wouldn't
have these problems.

Sure there is.  You're just too closed minded to accept it.  I can't
imagine how horrible playing certain games that are on the PC online
are going to play on Xbox Live, for example (Counter-Strike, Unreal
Championship, Star Wars Galaxies, etc.).  

For some games, there is simply no better platform than the PC.  For
others, there is no better platform than a console.  For FPS, sims,
and RTS as well as MMOGs, the PC is the best choice.  For platformers,
sports games (normal and extreme), and RPGs, the consoles are the way
to go.  (Note: I say RPGs on consoles because I don't like the way
most PC RPG games play--and I don't mention racing because I can't
stand those types of games, but each person's MMV of course.)
------
Sam

Knowledge is power.
Power corrupts.
Study hard.
Be evil.
-Saying on a friend's T-shirt, author unknown to me.

Beers and cheers
(uncle) Goy

http://www.theuspits.com

"A man is only as old as the woman he feels........"
--Groucho Marx--

Beers and cheers
(uncle) Goy

http://www.theuspits.com

"A man is only as old as the woman he feels........"
--Groucho Marx--

You also sound like Charlie Brown instead of Charlie Doane.  Lucy keeps
pulling the ball away at the last second; nothing works for poor Chuck. ;0)
I can count on one hand the number of technical glitches I've had with games
over the last few years.  The last year with WinXP has been the best PC
*** year ever for me.  Yes, PC's CAN be a royal pain in the ass.  I still
think much of it boils down to user error.  What else explains my
experience, good fortune?  And the same for my friend who has NO problems?
The only guy I know with PC *** heartaches is a self-proclaimed expert
who doesn't know his ass from a hard drive.  User error is the biggest cause
of troubles and sound fundamentals with a LITTLE luck is the best path to
low stress PC ***.

I guess for every great experience like mine, there has to be an experience
like yours to even things out. ;0)

--
Joe M.

The power PC gamer goes and buys himself a $300 video card, the latest
and greatest, and then what?  He finds that there's not but two or three
games on the planet that support the thing.  So he's screwed.

The budget PC gamer goes and buys himself a $50 video card, one which
will run most of the games, and then he sees something like Doom III
coming down the pike and his video card won't support that.  So he's
screwed too.

No matter which route a PC gamer takes, he's gonna get shafted.

I wouldn't mind doing that except for the fact that practically all
documents I work with tend to be in a Microsoft format (ie. DOC or
MDB) and I need to view those.

Which probably means that all of your old games are junk and you won't
be able to play them.  Which is par for the course on a PC.  I don't
know why people even bother claiming that PC's are backwards compatible.
They really aren't, and the more specialized the app the less likely it
will be supported in the future.  Games are pretty specialized apps when
it comes right down to it, so they're among the least likely to work in
the future.

--
Oh, oh.  Here come those crazy aliens again.  Help me, Elllleeot!
Help me get home!  (Atari 2600 E.T. manual, worst game ever made)

  The irony is, of course, the XBox cache's data to the hard disk, in some
cases large amounts.  The difference between this and "installation" is
purely semantics.

  Consoles already have keyboards, but I can say from experience they are
not that useful like on a PC.  You can get racing wheels for a console, too.
I'm not a big racing fan, but I have Gran Turismo 3 for my PS2 that I bought
on sale and I like playing it.  I just use a gamepad.
The graphics are great, but they are a lot more jaggy than what I'd get on a
PC and sometimes my eyes get tired of looking at the murky image.

  No HOTAS on a console, yet.   I can't see a sim with that steep of a
learning curve ever selling to a mass market audience.  Playstation had a
port of Gunship 2000 that was great, though, and the gamepad had alot of
shift functions built in.

  You can run it on PS2, and I assume there's an XBox version (I rented it,
wasn't real thrilled with PS2 version, too much jaggies).  The PC version is
pretty much the same game, BTW.

 > Yes, many people do do all these things at home.

I seriously doubt that.  Nobody is buying $300 video cards for word
processing and spread sheets.

 >>>Does your console run Office programs?
 >>
 >>Silly me, I run those at the office.  That's why they're Office programs.
 >
 >
 > Silly me, I suppose that's why millions of people also use them at
 > home for things like finishing up work (my mother makes spreadsheets
 > for scheduling shifts at her job on her PC, for example), or even
 > *gasp* just to write stuff for fun!

Most people actually finish up work AT work.  That's what the place is
for.  I'm sure employers just LOVE having employees finish up the job
off the clock using their own resources, but it's a very bad idea and
it opens a window of potential liability.  For example, if the employer
*did* pay her for her time making those spreadsheets, then those belong
to the employer, and they're on HER computer.  What happens if they
part ways (she quits, gets fired, laid off, etc.) and the employer
wants his property back (or destroyed)?  Think that could get ugly?
There's an old saying about mixing business and pleasure.  I don't.

 > While most Office programs don't have a real need at the normal home,
 > Word or another word processor is something that every computer should
 > have.  Hell, half the kids in college couldn't survive without a word
 > processing application on their PCs/laptops.  I truly doubt the
 > libraries would let them stay in them all night to write term papers
 > and such, especially with thousands of other students waiting to use
 > those same PCs..
 >
 > And yes, simple word processing programs are part of office suites.

If the kids couldn't survive in college without a word processor then
they shouldn't BE in college until they can.  That's the reason there
are so many nearly illiterate people coming out of colleges with a
diploma that should rightfully be awarded to their laptop PC.
It's like handing a calculator to a kid before they learn to do math
on paper or in their head.  It turns them into useless slugs unless
a machine is around to help them.

 >>>Does your console run drawing programs?
 >>
 >>If it weren't for taking screenshots of error messages at work, I could
 >>honestly say that I've never run Paint in the last five years.

 > Consoles have had their drawing programs as well.  Mario Paint is an
 > example of one.  It's older, but it was on the SNES and used *gasp* a
 > mouse!

Yeah, I remember that one.  It was the Nintendo Bargain Bin speed king
until Hey You Pikachu dethroned it for the title of quickest clearance
Nintendo title ever made.  Nobody liked it.

 >>>Does your console run music programs?
 >>
 >>Silly me, I have a stereo system to play music the old-fashioned way.
 >>I even play 8-tracks on it.  Music programs can't do that.
 >
 >
 > But music programs can make lives easier.  Setting up personalized
 > playlists without the hassle of having to remove and insert the data
 > medium the music is stored on is something I use extensively while I
 > am on my PC.

Oh.  My.  GAWD.
You would probably just fall over dead if you were actually faced with
a record player then.  How lazy can you be?  And wasn't it you just
one post ago saying that you wanted to run Linux because opening a
bunch of apps bogs down the machine?
I never set up personalized playlists.  I like music arranged by
people who know what they're doing.  I'm not a music arranger.
A CD is not so much work that it's going to break my arm changing one
every 40 minutes or so.  I don't even need to do that.  I've got a
6-CD cartridge changer, so that's good for 4 hours and then I just
plug in another cartridge for another 4 hours.  I've got three of
them so I could run 12 solid hours of music changing cartridges a
total of twice.  And that's without bogging down any PC.

 > Add in the editing programs you can get, and practically anyone can
 > start mixing their own music.  And for a hell of a lot less than going
 > and buying DAT players, tapes, and mixing boards and such.
 >
 >
 >>>Does your console run wordprocessers?
 >>
 >>I see that your spell check is running fabulously.  I don't WANT a
 >>word processor for a toy.
 >
 >
 > Didn't the Saturn have a word processing program for it?  I know you
 > could also set up the DC to run Word as well.  And both consoles had
 > keyboard peripherals, as well as mice.

That does nothing to change the fact that I don't want a word
processor as a toy.  If the Saturn DID have a word processor, I sure
wouldn't buy it, and as for the DC, running Word on a box that has
no printer port is pretty much an exercise in futility.

 >>>Does your console run database programs?
 >>
 >>Actually, yeah, they do.  That's how they manage game saves.
 >
 >
 > No, that's not how they manage game saves.  They use flash RAM (for
 > memory cards) or a hard drive (in the Xbox's case).  Database programs
 > are what you use when you are setting up servers, and they are what
 > you access each time you go to a web page.  Programs like SQL, ISS,
 > etc.  Moron.

Dummy, the flash RAM does NOTHING to manage itself and neither does a
hard drive.  They use FILE ALLOCATION TABLES.  Read the word TABLES
again.  TABLES TABLES TABLES.  Get it? Got it?  Now WHAT ELSE uses
tables?  HELLO DATABASE PROGRAM!!!

Before you go calling someone else a moron, you'd best have your ducks
in a row or you're gonna look the part of the fool yourself.

 >>>Does your console run mail programs?
 >>
 >>No, there's a mailbox on my porch which handles my mail needs.
 >>There's a whole bunch of nice people in the Post Office to do
 >>that.  The PC is just a source of spam.
 >
 >
 > Both the Sega Saturn and the Sega Dreamcast could and did run email
 > programs, as well as web applications.  Try not to let it destroy you
 > that consoles are able to handle these simple things as well, Eugene.

So what?  Do you realize that the two consoles you named CRASHED AND
BURNED?  Both of them died early deaths.  Looks like their 'net ability
did about jack-point-squat to help their sales.  Nobody WANTS a console
to do those things.  The Xbox won't.  It's going closed network, so you
can forget E-mail on that.  The GC probably won't get any browser or
e-mail app ever.  The only one left is PS2, and that thing doesn't have
any HDD yet to even be remotely useful for that.  Besides, a PS2 ($199)
plus the HDD ($130) and the Network adapter ($40) brings you up to a
total of $369.  You could buy a PC that would kick it's butt for doing
e-mail and web for about that much.

 >>>Does your console run video editing programs?
 >>
 >>Oh, there's something I do every day <sarcasm>.  Who in the
 >>heck runs video editing programs for home use?  Other than
 >>kiddie porn there's no real purpose for it.
 >
 >
 > Maybe for making home movies to send to grandma and grampa?  Perhaps
 > for just fun?  There's loads of cheap editing tools out there.  Next
 > you'll say that home video cameras are also something that no one
 > uses.

Yeah, like there are a whole lot of old geezers with PC's capable of
watching home movies on.  That's why home video cameras tend to use
videotape.  Gramps might actually HAVE a VCR.  Maybe.
Besides, home movies aren't supposed to look like Spielberg made it.

 >>>Nope, it doesn't, that's why it's a console.
 >>
 >>Which is exactly what I want.  The RIGHT tool for the RIGHT
 >>job.  That's what consoles are.
 >
 >
 > They're the right tools for their specific purposes.  You can't have
 > an Xbox, however, and expect to run PS2 or GC software on it.  As
 > closed source as Windows may be, consoles are even more closed source.

That's one of the best things about consoles.  With them being so
closed, the software is made by invitation only.  That's why there's
such a better signal to noise ratio on console games as opposed to
PC ones.

 > At least on the PC they can make the same game run no matter what sort
 > of hardware you have under the hood, and in many cases now the OS is
 > mattering less and less as well.

No, on the PC *you* can make the same game run.  They expect the end
user to do a lot of work.  Tons of work tracking down patches, doing
the installation, answering configuration questions and making sure
that the drivers are all up to date.

 >>If it was just hooking them up, I wouldn't be bothered.  It's the
 >>seemingly endless patches, registrations, and configurations that
 >>rip the fun right out of anything associated with a PC.
 >
 >
 > No one said PCs always had to be fun, Eugene.

Way to miss the point.  PC's are NEVER fun.  They're frustration
personified, they drive users into mad rages, they cause mental
anguish and distress, and they're the reason that IT professionals
have the most illegal drug abuse of any profession.

  >  Gaming PCs should be fun.

No, they should be shot.

  > Dedicated servers shouldn't be fun, they should be reliable and
 > able to run mission critical applications at all times.  Hardly any
 > fun involved in running mission critical applications, however.
 >
 >
 >>I don't deny that this is a PC.  I'm about to shoot the damned thing
 >>with my classic 1962 J.C. Higgins Model 20 12-Gauge shotgun if it comes
 >>up with one more error message or another stupid question trying to PISS
 >>ME OFF.  This is NOT a "little effort".  I had my Xbox playing games
 >>inside of 10 minutes of opening the console's package.  You can't get a
 >>PC to do that on a bet to save your life.
 >
 >
 > I can get games up and running on my PC in under 5 minutes of opening
 > the game's CD.  Maybe if you got some better hardware, or maybe a
 > little actual knowledge of how you should install things, you wouldn't
 > have these problems.

5 ...

read more »

I could always get it to work.  I just shouldn't HAVE to.  That's what I
find to be completely unreasonable.  That's the unacceptable aspect of
*** on the PC.  It's supposed to be the entertainer, and I'm supposed
to be the entertainee.  There's not much entertaining going on while
watching some stupid "% Installation Complete" bar slowly creep by, and
then (I *swear* the bastards do this on purpose) when it FINALLY gets to
99% complete, it stays there for about five minutes MOCKING you.

Oh puhleaze.  Is that the Windows XP I just spent 15 Minutes downloading a
24 MEGABYTE Service Pack 1 for today?  It was THAT screwed up!  UNBELIEVABLE.
How big was Windows 3.1?  It couldn't have been MUCH more than 24 MB.
I know I had it running on a '286 with a 40MB HDD.
So, there were as many PATCHES as the entire SIZE of Win3.1!  How screwed up
is that?  Good thing I didn't try that on a 56K dialup.  Even so, it took
about half an hour just to fix WinXP on this box and get the updater to stop
***ing at me every time it boots up.

I don't know about your 'good fortune'.  Try this:  Install the LucasArts
game "Full Throttle" and get it to run on your XP machine.  I tried it
yesterday, and ALMOST have it working.  I had to LIE to the thing and tell
it I had a Soundblaster 16 to get any sound out of it, and the sound is
pretty crappy but at least playable.  I don't think you could do any better.
Legacy support on sound cards has always been pretty pathetic.

I keep hoping that "Full Throttle" comes to a console because I'd buy it
in a heartbeat.  I've already played the whole game, but it'd be nice to
see what something like the XBox could do with it and not have to fight
to get the program even running with sound and a framerate over 20.
It's pitiful that the best machine I ever had running it was a Pentium90.
Of course, that wasn't legacy support.  That was the kind of machine it
was made for back in 1994.

Yeah, well I'm not like your friend.  I don't make user errors, and I do
know one of the things WinXP SP1 does.  Windows Media Player had a bug
which affects AthlonXP chips because it looks for "GenuineIntel" in the
CPU to enable support for the SSE (3D NOW in Athlon-speak) command set.
So, unless you download that service pack you take a 20% performance hit
you don't need to take due to WMP not running SSE on a chip that does it.

I mess with PC's all the time at work.  I don't like doing it, but I'm
getting paid so as long as the checks clear, I can't complain about that.
What I CAN complain about is when I happen to be the one doing the paying.
I will not fight a stupid machine to try and get entertainment out of the
dumb box.  Not with every currently viable console in the USA sitting in
my living room waiting to do the job hassle-free.

--
Oh, oh.  Here come those crazy aliens again.  Help me, Elllleeot!
Help me get home!  (Atari 2600 E.T. manual, worst game ever made)

Ruud van Gaal
Free car sim: http://www.racesimcentral.net/
Pencil art  : http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Amazing, so when I keep telling myself I ought to get myself a Linux
Box, I can do that now, literally :-)

Beers and cheers
(uncle) Goy

"The Pits"    http://www.racesimcentral.net/

"A man is only as old as the woman he feels"
--Groucho Marx--

Chuck, you are either a GREAT troll, or just one seriously dumb MF.  Please
let us know what Tel-com you work for, if you're their tech, thats one
company I dont want to rely on.

Or, I might just be able to explain all the bitterness.  You're wife
cheated on you in an online chatroom on the computer while you were
downstairs playing on your kiddie game, didn't she??

Chuck

--
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Benjamin Franklin

Yep, as Bill was sitting behind his desk, the spirit of Linus entered
him, and he called his tech department by cell phone and said 'I want
a *crackle* Linu *crackle* x-box'. Unfortunately these cell phones
don't have the best reception like in the old analog days, so it
turned out to be just 'x-box'.
;-)

That's what you get when you want to sell cheap PC's as consoles. :)

Ruud van Gaal
Free car sim: http://www.racesimcentral.net/
Pencil art  : http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Is there some special MSWindows version of DN3D?
The IBM version worked without a problem.
(too slow for my computer, though)

Well that's what you get for using MSWindows!
I never had any of these weird problems on my IBM PC clone.
Not all PC users are using MSWin!  Some are Linux or FreeBSD users.
(Linux, myself)
I just use MS-DOS for games.
I mostly use Linux for the Internet and some Unix text games.
And Apple and Sony make PCs too.
(you know that Sony sells Linux for their PlayStation 2, right?)

The bad thing about game systems is that you can't use add-on levels.
This makes game like Doom and Quake and Unreal Tournament kind of crappy.
And at least the PSX2 lets you use USB devices and run Linux/Unix software.
I still don't know how Unreal Tournament is going to be played on the X-Box.