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geekhack Community => Other Geeky Stuff => Topic started by: BucklingSpring on Sun, 04 October 2009, 07:51:25

Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: BucklingSpring on Sun, 04 October 2009, 07:51:25
Is it just me or the overall progress in processing power is stalling since couple years?

The Moore’s law seams healthy for transistor counts and storage. Stuff keeps getting greener and smaller… But how about speed?

Today’s top processors are only marginally faster than 3 years ago.

Ok we have re-introduced the good old “parallel computing” well mastered during the golden age of mainframes but our applications are slow to make the move and our domestic OS’ are wasting way too much resources to manage multicores.

Any thoughts?
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: timw4mail on Sun, 04 October 2009, 07:55:29
That, and software keeps getting more and more inefficient. If it weren't for such a lazy software industry, perhaps computers would actually feel somewhat faster each generation. But no, the bloat continues, and you need a high end computer to run what should be a simple program.

Size of software programs has risen to absurd levels. The speed has frozen to glacial levels. Is it so much to ask for some optimization so that newer hardware actually seems faster?
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: microsoft windows on Sun, 04 October 2009, 08:15:31
That's why I use Windows 2000. I've almost filled up half of my 10-gigabyte hard disk. It's more efficient than Windows XP, and a LOT more efficient than Vista, but still does everything I need. Imagine Vista taking 2 seconds total for the complete shutdown process on a 10-year-old computer!
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: BucklingSpring on Sun, 04 October 2009, 08:15:42
Right... I think the top priority for the software industry now is
Making money and protecting money (DRM - Digital Right Management)

When you are large enough and hold the population by the balls (MS), making a good product is not the right solution to make money. Because it would be a one time deal.

A crappy product always need support and improvements. Make sure your client pay for it and you generate a constant stream of income.

But I think the population realizes that and that is why we are also seeing another shift in the software industry. What used to be products models are slowly but surely moving to the service models. No more buy once and use forever. Pay per use is much more revenue efficient.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: ch_123 on Sun, 04 October 2009, 08:23:37
My theory is that once CPUs hit the Gigahertz mark, CPU speed became irrelevant. RAM is slowly but surely becoming like this, within the past year or two, it has become quite feasible to stuff your motherboard to it's max capacity of RAM without having to re-mortgage your home.

I think this is going to kill the PC market as we know it. There used to be a time when there was a tangible benefit to average people to buy the latest and greatest computer. Now there just isn't. Also, now that PCs can handle just about every form of multimedia under the sun, there just isn't that need for more powerful machines. Manufacturers are struggling to convince people of the merits of things that they don't need. Gaming is the main driver of demand for high end hardware, but sadly the PC gaming industry is a shadow of what it used to be. As consoles become more popular and capable, I think PC gaming will become more and more of a niche market, and thus not as influential as it used to be.

MS artificially pushed along the hardware market with bloat and (probably deliberately) poor quality OSes, but people have long since copped onto the game, the result of which is Windows 7 - a real throwback to the spartan Windows NT days. I'd say that Windows 7 will be kicking around for a long time, probably longer than Windows XP (basically a downgrade of Windows 2000) so MS now really has to go out of it's way to make it worth people's time and money to adopt a new OS.

Now of course, most of the things that 99% of people need computers for are now hosted elsewhere, so the computer is little more than an appliance for accessing the internet. It's almost cliched at this stage, but the cloud is where it is at. And alot of the traditional establishment is rather scared of things like smart phones and netbooks. The problem here is that people don't need or want fancy PCs, a fact that is exacerbated by the fact that a lot of services have moved to the net, and thus the market share of more profitable machines has taken a huge hit. Intel dislikes the Atom because its eating into the potential target market for it's higher end chips. MS is trying to castrate netbooks with things like Windows 7 Starter Edition and XP licences that restrict how powerful of a machine it can be installed on. In effect, they are telling people how they should use their computers, and what for.

I think it will come back to haunt them. Once ARM releases their dual-core CPUs, and Google comes out with it's Chrome OS, I'd say the likes of Intel and MS are going to have some pretty serious problems. People don't need bloated 1990s workstation OSes and Quad Core CPUs, they want something to read mail, download porn and whatever else takes their fancy.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: BucklingSpring on Sun, 04 October 2009, 08:24:32
Quote from: microsoft windows;122805
That's why I use Windows 2000. I've almost filled up half of my 10-gigabyte hard disk. It's more efficient than Windows XP, and a LOT more efficient than Vista, but still does everything I need. Imagine Vista taking 2 seconds total for the complete shutdown process on a 10-year-old computer!


No kidding. At work we made the move to Office 2007 this year but we didn't renew our computer park. We are back at the dark age when clicking pagedown was like ordering pizza: If you don't get it in 30minutes, delivery is free.

Ok... So for you guys, the processing power is still growing normally but it is the software industry that is slowing the overall progress?

How do you explain pure mhz and BUS speed stalling at the hardware level?
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: BucklingSpring on Sun, 04 October 2009, 08:31:22
Quote from: ch_123;122808
(A) Manufacturers are struggling to convince people of the merits of things that they don't need.

(B) I'd say the likes of Intel and MS are going to have some pretty serious problems.


A- What a shocker... hehehehe Welcome to the 1900's
B- GOOOOOOOOD! Can't wait to see  that. It's about f-beep-g time to see law of nature ruling again.

And I buy your explanation for CPU power.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: AndrewZorn on Sun, 04 October 2009, 10:44:26
this is not what moore's law is about
besides the fact that moore's law is more like a attention-grabbing prediction
"how fast game X can be run" does not come close to showing off the technical merits of processors that HAVE in fact been growing quickly

EDIT and the software industry IS the problem
everyones getting lazy
slap together a new game, OS, whatever, but by god don't optimize it or anything, don't fix the bugs (we can just patch it later), and don't pick up the phone when they call because the 2010 version will be out soon.

exceptions exist, google actually makes software look like it is doing its job, but seeing people think Crysis runs slow because the graphics are so good, or that grandma *NEEDS* to update her computer so she can continue emailing for another 5yrs...
just the software guys at work
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: timw4mail on Sun, 04 October 2009, 11:41:11
Crysis is one thing, general programs are another. Crysis has two issues: LOTS of graphical detail, and a complex game engine. Engine optimizations are there, but I see that as more of a time thing than neglect.

On the other hand, game textures are huge. I still don't see how you need so many gigabytes of files to play a game.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: williamjoseph on Sun, 04 October 2009, 11:49:15
well, atleast the manufactures have decided to go in a horizontal rout with CPU with multi core units.  it may not be the total power of the unit but the power of multiplication for work done with multi-core cpu's.  i would even think that sex-core or octo-core units will be available within the next 2 years... AMD has currently an experimental line of 8core units they are working out for server applications.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: timw4mail on Sun, 04 October 2009, 11:55:20
Really, I wish multi-core had happened earlier, as I'm a fairly heavy multitasker. Being on my VIA rig right now, with a single core processor, really makes me appreciate multiple cores. Too bad there aren't any dual socket consumer boards anymore...

What's scary is that it is possible to bog down a quad core even with the same sort of software that you have for single cores.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: AndrewZorn on Sun, 04 October 2009, 12:03:30
crysis has good graphics but not that good.  the textures arent even great.  its pretty much hailed as an extremely poorly coded game.  look at how nice source is, HL2ep2 isnt quite Crysis but runs wayyyy better

just seems like there is less coding voodoo anymore to get performance, just more video cards and nvidia saying "the way it's meant to be played" on a fake video card, and everyone reusing the same old engines just to get some new ideas out to shelves
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: Hak Foo on Sun, 04 October 2009, 12:08:17
Quote from: BucklingSpring;122806
Right... I think the top priority for the software industry now is
Making money and protecting money (DRM - Digital Right Management)

When you are large enough and hold the population by the balls (MS), making a good product is not the right solution to make money. Because it would be a one time deal.

A crappy product always need support and improvements. Make sure your client pay for it and you generate a constant stream of income.

But I think the population realizes that and that is why we are also seeing another shift in the software industry. What used to be products models are slowly but surely moving to the service models. No more buy once and use forever. Pay per use is much more revenue efficient.



I recall being incensed when they said very early on, "expect the next version after Vista soon, to ensure people who are paying the annual subscription licenses don't feel ripped off and go back to buying permanent copies for a better value for money."
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: hyperlinked on Sun, 04 October 2009, 12:10:33
Quote from: timw4mail;122803
That, and software keeps getting more and more inefficient. If it weren't for such a lazy software industry, perhaps computers would actually feel somewhat faster each generation.

I don't know if the software industry is necessarily "lazy," though the end result is the same.  A lot of software is getting much more complicated with the need to interact with more and more 3rd party applications and a bonanza of online interfaces that didn't exist five years ago. Then factor in backward compatibility. Stuff that you were running on Windows 2000 probably has no business running on Windows 7, but a lot of it does and it does so at a cost. Apple, with their smaller market share (especially going back a few years), could dare to say that they were making a total break with their old OS and move to a new generation OS. They suffered some backlash, but came out of it just fine. I'm not sure if Microsoft could have done the same thing without setting off riots.

Then there are all sorts of software that have to process tasks in the background. You gotta have mini programs listening for all sorts of events. All this eats up cycles.

The amount of talent is also a problem. There are a lot more programmers than there were ten years ago, but the number of good programmers is probably a lot less impressive. A lot of software engineers have a tight specialty that they do over and over again. That doesn't lend itself well to contributing to innovation that requires a lot of different kind of code working together in unison and because of that you have a lot of code whose sole purpose is just to bridge messages between related programs or even within the same program.

Add to all of these problems the pressures of the product release cycle and you have the modern software industry.

I just installed Snow Leopard on my two Macs. If you're not familiar with it, Snow Leopard is mostly just a rewrite of Mac OS Leopard to make it more effient and improve its ability to use multiple cores. I like the idea that they'd devote an entire product just to revising a previous work so that it runs leaner.

The migration was a royal pain in the ass as I had a custom webserver on that thing that I use for all my Web development work and I had to rebuild my development environment from scratch after the upgrade. Some stuff still isn't running right with that, but everything is notably faster now. Over time, it'll be worth the hassle. Start-up and shut down are already much much faster on my heavily loaded rig.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: AndrewZorn on Sun, 04 October 2009, 12:11:53
id be totally fine with subscription as long as i was actually paying for something dynamic

as in
not paying $xxx a year to use something they made once and is no different after year 5 than year 3

could be neat if it was just "microsoft windows" as a constantly evolving environment, like a linux install, and you either got in on it early and saw the changes or late and don't know any better
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: timw4mail on Sun, 04 October 2009, 12:14:10
Crysis runs well enough to be playable on a Via Nano 1.6GHz, 2GB of memory, and an S3 Chrome 440 GTX.

Whether you consider that good or not, I don't really care, but there is a limit to optimization when you have the complexity of such a game engine. The amount of physics simulation in Crysis is definitely one of the most impressive I've seen.

Theres a thing about "good" code that I should probably mention. "Good" code is human readable, and is therefore abstracted from the computer, therefore it is by definition less optimized.

Optimized code often uses weird hacks, lower level languages, et cetera, that make it "bad" code, but actually runs better.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: AndrewZorn on Sun, 04 October 2009, 12:19:19
not that i program professionally but surely that is opinion
it can be human readable and optimized
and i dont think anyone is saying crysis runs badly because they used too many comments and made it easy to follow the logic

i cant even argue this, its a fact that crysis is poorly put together, and that is the reason the hardware requirements are insane, everyone is amazed at 60fps, etc.

despite owning it since release day i finally installed and played it a couple weeks ago and thoroughly enjoyed it.  but when fps drops from 40ish to about 5 just because i am fighting a large spider, hard to defend it technically.
crysis had some vistas but hl2ep2 i still think is more visually pleasing overall (not technically)
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: timw4mail on Sun, 04 October 2009, 12:32:55
Not to say that I'm not impressed with the source engine, but have you not noticed the amount of trees, grass blades, and other objects that have to be rendered?

I understand the feeling that Crysis is poorly optimized, or "poorly put together," but I can't see how it isn't more or less so than any other game. Since it was a game designed for the PC platform exclusively, it definitely would seem to have less of an excuse.  But for the sheer amount of polygons on the screen, the game runs pretty well, I'd say.

The source engine is nice, but its quickly looking its age. The textures are low quality, it doesn't have the number of polygons to properly complement larger textures, and generally runs at larger framerates than are needed. (Except on Intel graphics, which have always been pathetic)
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: AndrewZorn on Sun, 04 October 2009, 12:55:09
well, not necessarily should you be FORCED to upgrade
you can still use a non-current linux install, and ignore feature updates, just use security updates

i dont think the "ownership" thing will happen anytime soon
if you owned it you could legally copy and sell it

funny part is i do not see how their logic does not defeat them in some situations,
for instance,
you buy a copy of windows, you have a key
it is illegal to download (like, "illegally") a copy and use that key
but why?  you have the right to use it...

the whole not-owning thing and legal mumbo jumbo raises so many paradoxes it is impossible to really side either way
is it wrong to skip the commercials on free television?
what about tell a friend the outcome of a football game without the written consent of NBC and the NFL?
wrong to borrow a game from a friend and beat it?
used games?
etc
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: JBert on Sun, 04 October 2009, 13:29:07
Quote from: timw4mail;122803
That, and software keeps getting more and more inefficient. If it weren't for such a lazy software industry, perhaps computers would actually feel somewhat faster each generation. But no, the bloat continues, and you need a high end computer to run what should be a simple program.

Size of software programs has risen to absurd levels. The speed has frozen to glacial levels. Is it so much to ask for some optimization so that newer hardware actually seems faster?
Yes, it is asking too much. Unless you find your niche product, software development is a business with loads of suppliers, each willing to push something that bearably works out of the door (with "bearably" depending on the type of software).

Currently, due to the wages most developers and administrators expect, it is far easier to throw extra hardware at a problem instead of thoroughly fixing it. The problem becomes even nicer when you factor backwards-compatibility in all of this - that's basically why Windows is becoming so large to install.

Anyway, I'm simplifying but that's probably the core issue.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: msiegel on Sun, 04 October 2009, 13:35:27
i tend to agree with jbert:
building software is currently very difficult (e.g., time consuming), and "easy" solutions to problems that arise during development often carry with them horrendous inefficiencies.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: AndrewZorn on Sun, 04 October 2009, 13:57:08
software is definitely not easy and relies a lot on creativity and lots of people working together, esp when talking about compatibility issues and a complete working system

which is why free software is the key to success

(http://blogs.nyu.edu/blogs/gc69/stdin/richard_stallman_grande.jpg)

full circle
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: JBert on Sun, 04 October 2009, 14:11:39
Well, no. Free software is something noble to strife for but it is probably not viable just to make open-source software.

After all, everyone likes to get paid. So to run a company on it, you do have to find a market in which you can gather enough interest to get developers yet still have not enough contenders so you can live from the support packages you sell with your software.

Library writers probably are the ones who deserve an awful lot of respect: their products are mostly incorporated in a lot of software bundles, yet they only rarely get repaid for their effort. Its mostly by selling books or consulting services that they can keep working on their code.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: timw4mail on Sun, 04 October 2009, 14:27:19
Stallman is scary. Linus Torvalds is the picture I want to see next time.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: msiegel on Sun, 04 October 2009, 14:34:31
Quote from: ripster;122909
Ugh.  Whatever happened to pics of babes in bikinis around here?


yeah...

note: *nobody post pics of stallman in a bikini*
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: timw4mail on Sun, 04 October 2009, 14:35:24
Quote from: msiegel;122915
yeah...

note: *nobody post pics of stallman in a bikini*

(*Scarred for life*)
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: BucklingSpring on Sun, 04 October 2009, 15:27:49
Quote from: ripster;122909
Ugh.  Whatever happened to pics of babes in bikinis around here?


Tell me about it.
Chubaka in thong... No thanks
Call me old fashion
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: kode on Sun, 04 October 2009, 16:03:48
If you mean cpu frequency when you say processing power, then yeah, it's sort of stalled. For one thing, even intel figured out eventually that more hertz doesn't necessarily mean more computing, which is sort of why they went back to the pentium m architecture and more or less abandoned the P4 line. Now, there's also the fact that, yes, we are entering what could be called "the great computing depression (http://www.lysator.liu.se/upplysning/fa/The_Great_Depression.pdf )". Multiple processors/cores is the way to go, and has been for quite some time now. Vector processing (which made Crays so darn awesome) has entered a renaissance as well, with GPGPU and the PS3 and so on. Here's (http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2006/EECS-2006-183.pdf) a report from which a bunch of the stuff in that earlier link was taken. It is quite clear that things have changed from the earlier, and there are other problems that set the boundaries now.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: Rajagra on Sun, 04 October 2009, 17:34:36
Quote from: ripster;122909
ugh.  Whatever happened to pics of babes in bikinis around here?




The PC I'm on now is getting progressively slower (as in frequent pauses). I'm sure it's caused by Windows XP updates, they are the only real change happening. There is a reason MS wants everyone online, it gives them control of their revenue stream.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: timw4mail on Sun, 04 October 2009, 19:04:14
That...just doesn't work with Legos...
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: InSanCen on Mon, 05 October 2009, 12:48:46
Quote from: AndrewZorn;122877
you buy a copy of windows, you have a key
it is illegal to download (like, "illegally") a copy and use that key


Erm... no it itn't. And that's from an M$ rep himself.

We do a lot of F&R's in work, and as such, encounter a large variety of keys (XP SP1, SP2, Vista, Vista SP2 etc). All of which will not install off each others disc ( A Key for XP SP1 will not work on an install from a SP2 disc). When visited in my previous work by M$, which also did the same (And is the UK's largest PC retailer, however much they suck and I hate them), were told that it is fine, as long as the key is genuine.

Joe Public is not allowed to walk in with his mates key written on a piece of paper, and get us to reinstall that for him. Jane Public walks in for an F&R, and has  the OEM sticker on the side of her machine, but no install media? Fine.

Just for reference, although I'm not a raving fan of M$ and Windows, I'm not of the mind that they are the root of all evil either. It does what it does, usually adequately. It's just not for me most of the time.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: AndrewZorn on Mon, 05 October 2009, 13:12:14
so why do people get 'caught' for DOWNLOADING windows, not trying to activate?

and even if you are able to disprove my example my points still remain

and yes free software is not the key to money but it is best for all, it does not inspire competition but linux right now is not the result of competition anyway
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: InSanCen on Mon, 05 October 2009, 13:33:21
Quote from: AndrewZorn;123145
so why do people get 'caught' for DOWNLOADING windows, not trying to activate?

and even if you are able to disprove my example my points still remain

and yes free software is not the key to money but it is best for all, it does not inspire competition but linux right now is not the result of competition anyway


Although the term "downloading software" is in common use (Likely from the Music Industry), what they are actually prosecuted with is more along the lines of  usage without a valid license, infringement of Intelluctual Property etc... it depends on your locality.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: AndrewZorn on Mon, 05 October 2009, 14:15:45
downloading a movie you already own will get you in trouble
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: itlnstln on Mon, 05 October 2009, 14:18:54
I have never heard of anyone getting in trouble for downloading Windows.  All you pay for is the key.  There was a rash of people getting in "trouble" for illegal keys/activation, but not for d/ling the actual program.  Hell, I just bought 2 keys (one 64-bit, one 32-bit) for Win7 ($30 ea.) from MS, and they are having me download the software from them.  I am not even getting a pressed CD.  The only thing I can think of is that some ISPs were throttling/monitoring P2P traffic awhile back, and maybe somthing came out of that, but downloading Windows, in and of itself,  is not illegal.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: itlnstln on Mon, 05 October 2009, 14:19:30
Quote from: AndrewZorn;123171
downloading a movie you already own will get you in trouble

So will ripping a movie you already own.  Apples and oranges.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: hyperlinked on Mon, 05 October 2009, 16:03:40
Quote from: JBert;122904
Well, no. Free software is something noble to strife for but it is probably not viable just to make open-source software.

I don't believe that free software is necessarily that noble of a cause. It's just one model to publish a work and gain leverage into a market. It sometimes results in fantastic products that are above and beyond anything that one organization or person could have done, but let's not confuse open source with good software just because there are some notable examples of good open source software. There's maybe an example or two of good software that isn't free too.

When the open source model of distribution doesn't work for a product, all it does is make it easy for script kiddies to violate the people who were unfortunate enough to adopt the software. Whenever I make use of free software, I always contribute money to the core authors if they're accepting donations. Just in case if their product doesn't catch on, they may at least be motivated to keep supporting their work as a business.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: msiegel on Mon, 05 October 2009, 16:09:34
what's cool about open source licensing is that it enables software evolution by tiny random contributions, rather than relying on expensive product-as-a-whole intelligent design :)
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: InSanCen on Mon, 05 October 2009, 17:24:50
Quote from: itlnstln;123176
I have never heard of anyone getting in trouble for downloading Windows.  All you pay for is the key.  There was a rash of people getting in "trouble" for illegal keys/activation, but not for d/ling the actual program.  Hell, I just bought 2 keys (one 64-bit, one 32-bit) for Win7 ($30 ea.) from MS, and they are having me download the software from them.  I am not even getting a pressed CD.  The only thing I can think of is that some ISPs were throttling/monitoring P2P traffic awhile back, and maybe somthing came out of that, but downloading Windows, in and of itself,  is not illegal.

Yep. I have bought plain keys of M$ before (Win XP IIRC), and it was a bit cheaper than getting an OEM copy from an E-tailor

Quote from: msiegel;123208
what's cool about open source licensing is that it enables software evolution by tiny random contributions, rather than relying on expensive product-as-a-whole intelligent design :)

It is indeed great. You can have someone go off on a tangent, and develop something that ultimately turns into a "killer feature" whereas it may well get voted down in a "design by comitee" environment.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: Hak Foo on Mon, 05 October 2009, 20:10:57
I used to admire the Free Software (tm) concept, but then I realized that the desire to force their terms on everyone else is actually costing it utility.

I think the only sensible license choice is the WTFPL (http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/).
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: timw4mail on Mon, 05 October 2009, 20:22:41
Quote from: Hak Foo;123271
I used to admire the Free Software (tm) concept, but then I realized that the desire to force their terms on everyone else is actually costing it utility.

I think the only sensible license choice is the WTFPL (http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/).

Or you could just use the BSD license, which is basically the same thing.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: Hak Foo on Mon, 05 October 2009, 21:28:27
Quote from: timw4mail;123277
Or you could just use the BSD license, which is basically the same thing.



They still expect you to include indication you took their work.  Too much!

My dream is a world where nobody makes any patent or copyright claim, and so the only driving force to market success is "how can we manufacture cheaper and more efficiently and in higher quality".

Very Stalinist, I know.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: rdh on Mon, 05 October 2009, 21:38:57
Quote from: Hak Foo;123298
They still expect you to include indication you took their work.  Too much!


Actually, that's no longer true:

Quote from: www.opensource.org

Historical Note: The original license used on BSD Unix had four clauses. The advertising clause (the third of four clauses) required you to acknowledge use of U.C. Berkeley code in your advertising of any product using that code. It was officially rescinded by the Director of the Office of Technology Licensing of the University of California on July 22nd, 1999. He states that clause 3 is "hereby deleted in its entirety." [...] The license below does not contain the advertising clause.


See http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php) for all the gories.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: vyshane on Mon, 05 October 2009, 22:02:19
Quote from: timw4mail;122803
That, and software keeps getting more and more inefficient. If it weren't for such a lazy software industry, perhaps computers would actually feel somewhat faster each generation. But no, the bloat continues, and you need a high end computer to run what should be a simple program.


It's not about laziness. Hardware is cheap whereas developer time is expensive. It used to be the other way round.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: Rajagra on Mon, 05 October 2009, 22:06:18
Quote from: vyshane;123310
Hardware is cheap whereas developer time is expensive.


Software can be copied at zero cost. What is an expensive cost divided by an infinite number of copies?
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: AndrewZorn on Mon, 05 October 2009, 22:25:21
i bought my windows 7 key(s) as well, no disc
but still pretty sure it is illegal to get it from nonapproved sources even using your own key
im forgetting where we are going with this anyway
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: msiegel on Mon, 05 October 2009, 22:32:25
omg!
guys, processing power is stalling!!

edit: what's just as bad is, the mysql server on my machine is now consuming 50% of the cpu, but it's under almost no load! this has been a problem for 5 years, and no one has yet figured out why. i say software complexity and current methods of program construction lead inevitably to increasing numbers of irresolvable bugs :(
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: vyshane on Mon, 05 October 2009, 22:40:48
Quote from: Rajagra;123313
Software can be copied at zero cost. What is an expensive cost divided by an infinite number of copies?


Sure, you can duplicate software at very little cost. However, this does not mean that you will sell an infinite number of copies. The reality is that every software project has a development budget. Also, a lot of software are custom one offs, non-consumer products.

Software is hard. We try to make it work right before trying to make it work fast. However, too often the budget is already spent, and the deadline past before you even contemplate optimisation. In the real world, optimisation tends to be done only if we have a real speed problem. Otherwise, software correctness trumps speed. Software maintainability also trumps speed. And of course, users are constantly clamoring for features.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: vyshane on Mon, 05 October 2009, 22:46:45
John Siracusa has a good write up (http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars/8) about this. It is framed within the context of a Snow Leopard review, but he does a great job of explaining the issues at hand.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars/8
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: msiegel on Mon, 05 October 2009, 23:01:59
those guys are making a heroic effort.

i just can't help feeling that the future lies in another direction...
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: hyperlinked on Mon, 05 October 2009, 23:23:59
Quote from: msiegel;123321
omg!
he mysql server on my machine is now consuming 50% of the cpu, but it's under almost no load!


That is nuts! What kind of machine are you running that on? What version of MySQL? What's the load when you're actually doing something with the MySQL server?

The only time I've see anything like that on a "normal" machine was this time when a heat sink popped off one of my servers at a data center and it took one of the server admins several days to realize that there was some hardware problem on my server. The processor was cooking in an inferno and so the slightest request ate up the CPU.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: hyperlinked on Mon, 05 October 2009, 23:29:17
Quote from: vyshane;123325
John Siracusa has a good write up (http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars/8) about this. It is framed within the context of a Snow Leopard review, but he does a great job of explaining the issues at hand.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars/8


I just upgraded to Snow Leopard this weekend. My 8-core desktop has extra pop now. My 4 year old Mac laptop... not so much.

I also spent a huge chunk of my weekend rebuilding the customized webserver environment on my desktop that I use for my development work... not fun and stuff is still screwed up, but it is faster at least.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: msiegel on Mon, 05 October 2009, 23:37:43
it *is* nuts!

this is mysql 4.1.21 on a 1.6GHz core duo with 50MB+ free (totally unused) memory during operation and near zero disk activity.

after a restart the cpu % is also near zero... and mysql server happily processes about 5 reads + 5 writes per second from php (web requests).

but once web activity dies down on the weekend, the cpu % shoots up, to use an entire core -- all for mysqld.

other people have the same problem on a variety of os, but i have *never* seen a resolution. i blame software/os complexity :(
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: Rajagra on Mon, 05 October 2009, 23:52:17
They should pass a law banning the use of compilers and make all programmers work in machine code, entered in hex. Advanced programmers should be allowed to use assembler, but only once they pass a test to show it doesn't make them lazy.

Harsh and unrealistic? Maybe. But imagine what people used to manage with 1MHz CPUs and a few hundred bytes of code, and scale that up to the machines we have today. Where is all that power disappearing? I'm damned if I know. Even accounting for compiler inefficiency and GUI overheads, something has gone horribly wrong.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: msiegel on Mon, 05 October 2009, 23:55:08
Quote from: Rajagra;123336
imagine what people used to manage with 1MHz CPUs and a few hundred bytes of code, and scale that up to the machines we have today.

yes... today's commodity hardware is unimaginably powerful by 1984 standards :D


and yet, we still enjoy those same old keyboards XD XD
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: vyshane on Tue, 06 October 2009, 00:12:32
Quote from: hyperlinked;123332
I also spent a huge chunk of my weekend rebuilding the customized webserver environment on my desktop that I use for my development work... not fun and stuff is still screwed up, but it is faster at least.


I'm a big fan of using virtual machines for development environments, for the above reason ;-)
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: TheSoulhunter on Tue, 06 October 2009, 05:27:32
Quote from: BucklingSpring;122802
Is it just me or the overall progress in processing power is stalling since couple years?
Depends on what you want to process I think, and if you just compare CPUs alone or complete systems which would add graphic cards to the equation...
If its about gaming, video encoding/processing, or very specialized tasks like Folding@Home, a brand new system can easily reach 10x the fps/speed of a 3-5 years old one!
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: vyshane on Tue, 06 October 2009, 06:37:54
Quote from: Rajagra;123336
They should pass a law banning the use of compilers and make all programmers work in machine code, entered in hex. Advanced programmers should be allowed to use assembler, but only once they pass a test to show it doesn't make them lazy.

Harsh and unrealistic? Maybe. But imagine what people used to manage with 1MHz CPUs and a few hundred bytes of code, and scale that up to the machines we have today. Where is all that power disappearing? I'm damned if I know. Even accounting for compiler inefficiency and GUI overheads, something has gone horribly wrong.


Good question. I've given it some more thought. Here's a shot at an answer:

It's not that programmers have become lazy. It is simply beyond human ability to implement complex systems using machine code. What people used to do with 1MHz CPUs was limited by what the hardware could do at the time.

When hardware became faster, we tried to build more and more complex software. However, we quickly found out that humans don't scale as well as the hardware. It is beyond human capability to keep track of bits and registers when we are trying to program our iPhone to send out a tweet. Our brain does not have enough bandwidth.

One way to manage complexity is to break things down into manageable chunks. We design layers of abstraction. When we send a tweet from our iPhone, we may be using: TCP/IP, HTTP, SSL, OAuth, XML (or JSON, RSS, Atom), Unicode, Cocoa Touch, Media Layer, Core Services, Core OS. Each layer may dial in a degree of inefficiency.

Sure, abstraction comes at a price. The alternative? There is none. We are not capable of building complex systems without it.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: timw4mail on Tue, 06 October 2009, 07:55:07
Quote from: vyshane;123377
Good question. I've given it some more thought. Here's a shot at an answer:

It's not that programmers have become lazy. It is simply beyond human ability to implement complex systems using machine code. What people used to do with 1MHz CPUs was limited by what the hardware could do at the time.

When hardware became faster, we tried to build more and more complex software. However, we quickly found out that humans don't scale as well as the hardware. It is beyond human capability to keep track of bits and registers when we are trying to program our iPhone to send out a tweet. Our brain does not have enough bandwidth.

One way to manage complexity is to break things down into manageable chunks. We design layers of abstraction. When we send a tweet from our iPhone, we may be using: TCP/IP, HTTP, SSL, OAuth, XML (or JSON, RSS, Atom), Unicode, Cocoa Touch, Media Layer, Core Services, Core OS. Each layer may dial in a degree of inefficiency.

Sure, abstraction comes at a price. The alternative? There is none. We are not capable of building complex systems without it.

Abstraction is by far not the only problem.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: sparayurji on Tue, 06 October 2009, 08:33:24
i'm not a sw developer (by far) but i used the computers enough to develop the opinion that since a lot of years ago (but maybe since the beginning) the pc market and in a lesser grade the it world in general have been driven just by one 'credo'. i mean that the final goal is to make money, at any cost. so in my opinion the question is irrelevant. at least is it to put the matter in a pure technical point of view. i think i just discovered warm water...
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: hyperlinked on Tue, 06 October 2009, 09:28:11
Quote from: vyshane;123377
The alternative? There is none. We are not capable of building complex systems without it.


Unless only one genetic freak of a person is building it, but such people are extremely limited in number and cannot scale to demand.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: hyperlinked on Tue, 06 October 2009, 09:31:01
Quote from: msiegel;123333
other people have the same problem on a variety of os, but i have *never* seen a resolution. i blame software/os complexity :(


Any reason why you haven't upgraded to MySQL 5.0? I don't know if it'll fix this particular problem, but I've had new bursts of speed with each version of MySQL.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: timw4mail on Tue, 06 October 2009, 10:37:46
Quote from: hyperlinked;123393
Any reason why you haven't upgraded to MySQL 5.0? I don't know if it'll fix this particular problem, but I've had new bursts of speed with each version of MySQL.

Really, why are you running such an old version?
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: D-EJ915 on Tue, 06 October 2009, 10:39:12
granted pretty much I'm the only person who uses my mysql database with my wikis and such but I get like no usage from it lol, all it does is take up ram.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: roaduck on Tue, 06 October 2009, 10:49:10
Is it just me or processing power is stalling?

I think we'll see dual cpu socket motherboards in the next year-eighteen months and also 6-8 core chips migrating from the server and mainframe architechture.I think there is already 2 cpu 12 core servers from AMD and Intel is bound to catch up with the 32 micro metre cores.

I stopped buying an O/S after Win 98 SE because I didn't want a big piece of c**p from Redmond.I'm currently on Tiny XP and it's much less than 1 GB.

Just because multi-cored cpu's and fast RAM and big HDD's are cheap and powerfull, it doesn't mean we should be slowing our computers down with massive buggy software bundles.

I do think software engineers are lazy.There are much more efficient ways to implement things.I'll buy Microsoft software when it gets smaller AND more powerfull - ie: faster.
I'm looking for efficiency which to me means a big processor couple with small efficient software.

I use a standalone browser that's barely more than 1MB - OffbyOne - How big is Windows 7 now - 17 GB? Does it have to be that big to function well?

It's like some people say - Oh chips and memory and storage are cheap so it doesn't matter if I install big, inefficient bloatware that takes an age to scan, boot up and save and shutdown.

Hardware must be partly driven by big lumbering software and I, for one will not be installing it.

Imagine Windows 7 booting in under ten seconds - no chance.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: msiegel on Tue, 06 October 2009, 10:49:57
Quote from: hyperlinked;123393
Any reason why you haven't upgraded to MySQL 5.0? I don't know if it'll fix this particular problem, but I've had new bursts of speed with each version of MySQL.


according to numerous reports i've seen, newer versions have the exact same problem.

to save time, i won't be upgrading any of the software on that server until it's ready to be put to a new use :)
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: Mercen_505 on Tue, 06 October 2009, 11:47:10
I come from an era where 640k of memory was 10x what I was used to working with, so I find it appalling that my OS consumes hundreds of megs of RAM on startup, and automatically bogs things down by starting dozens of "services" that 95% of people aren't going to need.

Now, I don't advocate programming in ASM. Been there, done that, happy to stick with C/C++. Hell, I'm happy that I don't have to inline ASM just to get graphics code running fast enough. Many programmers are sloppy, but there a lot of folks such as myself that always want to produce tight, optimized code. The problem is that by and large the software you use is being produced by people who are slaves to middle/upper management. After a while, you get tired of the bull****, and that means you give up and do as little as possible to get the job done on time. Features get cut, or pushed out incomplete, and rather than stopping to patch the things that don't work right you rush into the next set of "must have" features. When your product has so many issues it has a "knowledgebase" on the web, you know you're ****ed.

Compound the problem by upper management insisting on embracing every fancy piece of RAD or middleware that comes around, and you've got 100% of your company's bloated products built on top of other peoples' bloated products, which all happens to run on top of a bloated operating system. It's a recipe for disaster, and it has been propped up by escalating CPU, GPU, and RAM speeds.

Parallel processing is a band-aid, and likely a good thing all around, but until we get a processor and operating system that can intelligently and automatically dole out individual tasks to cores, it ain't gonna work out. Right now the overwhelming majority of software running on my dual core system never touch that second core, and that's a shame.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: sparayurji on Tue, 06 October 2009, 12:32:19
well i also remember what was possible to do with 48 (sinclair) or 64 (cbm) kilobytes of ram. of course it was a different age, but to make an example, there is also a c64 port for a twitter client.
but to be less extreme (not just exercises of style) i think that many open source oses can be defined also as clues that the direction where the computer world is going doesn't consider efficency as a factor.
for example haiku, or many 'compressed' linux distro such as tiny core, dsl, puppy, etc, or other really small oses (ex. kolibry, syllable). most cannot be considered as complete substitutes for the mainstream oses, of course (excluding probably haiku, which has a great potential), but still they prove, without the need to wait for chrome os or for future versions of moblin. and so on...
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: AndrewZorn on Tue, 06 October 2009, 12:53:28
Mercen_505, i dont think anyone is really blaming the little guys, we all know how it is to work for someone.  of course it is the guys in business and marketing that come up with a lot of software conceptually.  thats what is interesting about starting a linux install from basically nothing... instead of finding programs one day and wonder what they do, you instead basically know everything that is on your computer and why it's there and if you use it.

a simple solution to your common problem: assign as many big, common tasks (explorer, etc) to the second core as you can, so that when a single-threaded program runs it by default has the whole first one to work with.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: JBert on Tue, 06 October 2009, 14:48:32
Quote from: roaduck;123410
Imagine Windows 7 booting in under ten seconds - no chance.
Sorry, but I don't think you realize what your OS is doing.
It works on a whole lot of hardware, with some stuff being 10 years old or even older than that.
And most of all, programs written for windows 9x still work (more or less).

All of this stuff comes at a price, especially when you can't recompile the NT kernel and strip out the stuff you don't need.
The drawback is that your OS may be unable to boot once you do change the hardware...
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: roaduck on Tue, 06 October 2009, 15:12:01
Quote from: JBert;123481
Sorry, but I don't think you realize what your OS is doing.
It works on a whole lot of hardware, with some stuff being 10 years old or even older than that.
And most of all, programs written for windows 9x still work (more or less).

All of this stuff comes at a price, especially when you can't recompile the NT kernel and strip out the stuff you don't need.
The drawback is that your OS may be unable to boot once you do change the hardware...


I know that the NT kernal is ancient (Windows 7 is based on the NT kernel) and I don't see why I should change my hardware every 2-3 years because Microsoft forces us to upgrade.There comes a time when you've got to say - who's in control here - You or the software companies.

I have fast boot times JB because I have edited the registry, got selective start up in msconfig and sysedit, turned off all but a few Windows services, got things on manual update only and also I use a start up program that turns things on after a specified time - not all at once.

At the moment there is no incentive to write programs in assembly language mainly a M$ version of C++ or whatever.

Even IBM model 10's mainframes have to have backwards compatibility.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: ch_123 on Tue, 06 October 2009, 15:48:18
Have you actually ever tried Windows 7? I say this, because I used to have the attitude that I was going to stick to XP for Windows-related stuff, but Windows 7 is many many times better than it. Far more reliable too.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: itlnstln on Tue, 06 October 2009, 15:57:43
Quote from: roaduck;123490
I know that the NT kernal is ancient (Windows 7 is based on the NT kernel) and I don't see why I should change my hardware every 2-3 years because Microsoft forces us to upgrade.There comes a time when you've got to say - who's in control here - You or the software companies.
 

Windows 7 boots faster than XP on the same hardware (3 y/o Dell Centrino-based, single-core 32 bit, Intel integrated graphics laptop) for me and is more reponsive in use..  YMMV, I guess.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: williamjoseph on Tue, 06 October 2009, 17:24:44
Quote from: itlnstln;123506
Windows 7 boots faster than XP on the same hardware (3 y/o Dell Centrino-based, single-core 32 bit, Intel integrated graphics laptop) for me and is more reponsive in use..  YMMV, I guess.


and very compartamental, can successfully uninstall explorer and Internet explorer and still run 7 w/o issues.  i think it is going to be a wonderfull flagship for MS, just as XP.  sorta try to think of vista:ME as 7:XP.    xp was the fix for ME and 7 is the fix to vista.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: ch_123 on Tue, 06 October 2009, 17:33:12
People are all too quick to forget that XP wasn't particularly good when it was first released. In fact, it was almost three years before MS patched it up to a level where it could be depended on (Service Pack 2)

I've always maintained that the worst mistake MS made when designing Vista was taking so long to release it - I think the best way to continuously sell new OSes to people is to ensure that people either don't get too comfortable with the last one, or make the new one relatively similar to it's predecessor. MS went against both of those with Vista, but went with both of them for Windows 7. The Vista=ME comparison is cliched and misleading - Vista was actually an attempt to make something new, not just an unreliable rehash of an older system. Vista was more like Win95. Remember that one? Alot of people stuck to DOS and skipped 95 completely for very similar reasons as to those who stuck to XP over Vista - perceived unreliability and bloat. Windows 98 was more liked as far as I can tell, at least when the initial problems were ironed out.

Then again, the reason it took them so long to release Vista was because they had to spend all their time fixing XP and had to restart development of Vista half way in. I always find great irony in XP fanboys berating Vista for being underdeveloped - the underdevelopment is a direct consequence of XP being so useless in the first place!
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: AndrewZorn on Tue, 06 October 2009, 17:50:03
Quote from: williamjoseph;123537
can successfully uninstall explorer and Internet explorer and still run 7 w/o issues

really?
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: timw4mail on Tue, 06 October 2009, 18:25:39
Quote from: AndrewZorn;123544
really?

Yup. IE is dead on my computer.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: roaduck on Tue, 06 October 2009, 18:35:14
Quote from: ch_123;123497
Have you actually ever tried Windows 7? I say this, because I used to have the attitude that I was going to stick to XP for Windows-related stuff, but Windows 7 is many many times better than it. Far more reliable too.


When Windows SHRINKS and gets faster - I'll buy it then.Until then - No Chance.

Windows 7 is 17GB -  A huge O/S to me is 400MB.I also like a small system memory footprint.My version is 50MB of system RAM.On a 4GB RAM system it flies.

I tried AVI to DVD conversion whilst using a torrent client and with 20 web pages utilising Flash open simultaneously on both pcs and the smaller one won by a significant margin.Doing more with LESS resources.


I have tried Windows 7 - My friend lent me his o/c Q6600 HTPC for a weekend.My C2D Dell with a highly optimised Tiny XP installation floored it for boot times and shutdown.

It is like the difference between the old mini cooper and the new mini cooper.
My friend has an old cooper s with a howlett 1540 in it stage 3 tuned,lowered discs all round - worse spec than ther new BMW mini - but the old car does 0-100mph in less than 10 seconds and the new one is left for dead.Tight cornering at 75mph in Kielder a breeze in the Howlett - impossible in the bigger car.The Howy is much faster in hill climbs and can also out-brake the new car.It's power to weight ratio, sometimes you can play a better tune on an older fiddle.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: timw4mail on Tue, 06 October 2009, 18:40:58
Quote from: roaduck;123556
It's power to weight ratio, sometimes you can play a better tune on an older fiddle.

True, but some of us don't have the initiative to so heavily customize Windows.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: AndrewZorn on Tue, 06 October 2009, 18:42:50
i understand your zeal for a slim OS but boot time and hard drive space are really not huge factors nowadays (at least, for most people)

i restart maybe weekly and have plenty of hdd space, even those with tiny 80gb SSDs dont seem THAT bothered by the size of win7.

youre using a ramdisk?  how is boot time relevant if you are using a ramdisk?

i am yet to use nlite on windows 7, but got really into tiny (<200mb) winxp images
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: timw4mail on Tue, 06 October 2009, 18:47:27
Quote from: AndrewZorn;123559
i understand your zeal for a slim OS but boot time and hard drive space are really not huge factors nowadays (at least, for most people)

i restart maybe weekly and have plenty of hdd space, even those with tiny 80gb SSDs dont seem THAT bothered by the size of win7.

youre using a ramdisk?  how is boot time relevant if you are using a ramdisk?

i am yet to use nlite on windows 7, but got really into tiny (<200mb) winxp images

Well Hard Drive space is something that I aim to keep as much as I can. After all, the games take up a lot of space, so I'd rather have room for two more  big title games, than extra languages, or something else taking up space, related to the OS.

By the way, is there a way to eliminate OS logging in Windows?
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: AndrewZorn on Tue, 06 October 2009, 18:51:31
well sure we all like hdd space and i am definitely not in need of most of the features windows has, but to discredit 7 compared to XP based LARGELY on losing 10gb (when most to all computers sold today start at 250gb) is a little bit much
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: timw4mail on Tue, 06 October 2009, 18:55:57
Quote from: AndrewZorn;123568
well sure we all like hdd space and i am definitely not in need of most of the features windows has, but to discredit 7 compared to XP based LARGELY on losing 10gb (when most to all computers sold today start at 250gb) is a little bit much
That's two or three games that I don't have room for, when I have a 160GB hard drive.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: AndrewZorn on Tue, 06 October 2009, 18:59:09
assuming you are right at the point of filling it...
it's going to be dependent on your hardware and opinion
im just saying its install size isnt a huge downside that makes it inferior

i mean, i can just as easily make it sound trivial.  about (correction) 1% of the total space on a new 2TB drive (ignoring the 1000byte/kb crap)

i think it is fairly proportional to how storage space has grown, when xp was released hard drives were much smaller
i remember xp + office after a fresh install taking up 3gb of my 6gb drive.  it was an older computer, but not something anywhere near 'obsolete' at the time xp came out.

EDIT a bit of quick googling told me that the best at the time of xp's release (well, a month before, in 2001) was 100gb
xp install size calls for 1.5gb+ ("without the page file")
compared to
16-20gb (32, 64bit) required and a 2tb drive out

division says xp is the one that requires more drive space relative to current technology
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: williamjoseph on Tue, 06 October 2009, 19:19:40
Quote from: roaduck;123556
When Windows SHRINKS and gets faster - I'll buy it then.Until then - No Chance.

Windows 7 is 17GB -  A huge O/S to me is 400MB.I also like a small system memory footprint.My version is 50MB of system RAM.On a 4GB RAM system it flies.

I tried AVI to DVD conversion whilst using a torrent client and with 20 web pages utilising Flash open simultaneously on both pcs and the smaller one won by a significant margin.Doing more with LESS resources.


I have tried Windows 7 - My friend lent me his o/c Q6600 HTPC for a weekend.My C2D Dell with a highly optimised Tiny XP installation floored it for boot times and shutdown.

QUOTE]

old computers are great for legacy issues. But as someone who has a copy of xp home running in vista 64x under an emulation window, its a better experience by far.  it just sounds as if some people are acting as if the motorized vehicle is a passing fad. Larger and larger OS’s are going to be something we are going to have to deal with as technology advances. as far as the hardware, manufactures have gone with the multi core route along with a much small architecture, placing more/small switches onto a chip to do more work with less or the same power requirement on average.  i run the AMD phenom II 955.  over the original phenom 9550 it has a 40% increase in efficiency at an equivalent power level.  If you want to consume large amounts of electricity place a water cooling system onto your processor and OC it to 4.5 ghz.  I have mine OC’d to 3.91 ghz on air cooling alone.  Trying to maintain an old system will eventually become a loosing battle as parts become less available, dump your old files onto a 2tb HD and move on to a newer system that doesn’t care how big your OS is.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: InSanCen on Tue, 06 October 2009, 19:24:13
Quote from: roaduck;123490
got selective start up in msconfig and sysedit, turned off all but a few Windows services,


You want Autoruns. Written by Mark Russinovich of Sysinternals (which was bought by Microsoft).

Small download, no TSR. just works. Access to *everything* without tedious reghacks. Run as admin, kinda goes without saying.

Search M$ for the link.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: timw4mail on Tue, 06 October 2009, 19:51:29
Please fix your quote, and add capitalization to the beginning of your sentences...

And there's no way the Phenom II has a 40% increase over the Phenom. 33% is probably pushing it. I had a Phenom 9650, and I now have a Phenom II 940 BE.

True, as technology advances, there are some things that will have to change, get smaller, but we should be at the point where there doesn't need to be so much hardware thrown at small things like is so common right now.

I've got two main computers, one has a VIA Nano at 1.6GHz, the Other a Phenom II 940 BE @ 3.00GHz. Despite the speed difference, the Nano does pretty much the same thing. I've got an S3 card in the Via rig, and a Radeon HD 4870 in the Phenom II rig.

With the exception of some sound glitches, the Nano rig is as capable of playing Crysis as is the Phenom II. That's 1 core at 1.6GHz, vs. 4 cores at 3GHz.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: roaduck on Tue, 06 October 2009, 19:55:08
Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
 
No need for a RAMDISK for 50MB memory use.On an older pc or a cheap modest pc Tiny XP is quick.On a modern multicore it is cat-quick.I can install O/S from scratch with just a flashing white cursor on a black screen and any driver I want - I like to customise.Very few things in my house are off the shelf.
 
I also use windows in a box - no more going through endless menu trees.
 
XP is dead ! Long live TinyXP
 
Even though Linux is my OS of preferance, I cannot ignore Windows as there a lot of software which have no quality linux replacements and then Games.
18 Jul 2007 was the last date you could legally buy Windows XP. Microsoft simply stopped selling them so that they can promote Vista. But XP fans there is a news to cheer … eXPerience has just relesed TinyXP Rev09.

TinyXP contains all the updated drivers to the day and there are several custom installation options. It’s based on XP SP3. The best thing about this is that allows you to install Windows XP without the much hated Internet Explorer, Outlook express and Windows media player. These are the available install options.
(http://techome.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/thunderplains.jpg?w=300&h=239) (http://techome.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/thunderplains.jpg)[/B]
Tiny XP installs thousands of registry hacks, that improve the system so much you’ll never want to go back to the standard version. As if that’s not enough, it even includes a bunch of cool options at boot time for trouble shooting, and even a fully functional copy of the Damn Small Linux live CD!
The installation will automatically install follwing components.
Service Pack 3 Final (Build 5512)
All Hotfixes Up To May 2008
DirectX DLL Libraries (24 to 36)
Flash Player v9.0.124.0 (IE) – / – Plugin DLL v9.0.124.0 (Firefox/Opera)
Royale Theme (Options 1 to 4) – / – Classic Theme
(http://techome.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/tinyxp_04.jpg?w=300&h=225) (http://techome.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/tinyxp_04.jpg)
The following applications are also included in CD are Acronis Backup & Restore, Damn Small Linux 4.3, Hirens Boot CD 9.5 and SpinRite 6.0. You can download the TinyXP ISO which is only 700 MB using torrents.
Here is a link to download it from The Pirate Bay - The world’s most loved torrent tracker. You will also find installation instructions there.
Download (http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4206516/TinyXP_Rev09_-_eXPerience)
 
 
http://techome.wordpress.com/2008/07/07/xp-is-dead-long-live-tinyxp/
________________________________________________________________
.:WINDOWS IN A BOX:.
 
(http://bigdaddydesign.150m.com/images/softpedia_free_award_f.gif) (http://www.softpedia.com/get/Windows-Widgets/System-Utilities/Windows-in-a-box.shtml)(http://bigdaddydesign.150m.com/images/editors_pick_black.gif) (http://www.freewarefiles.com/program_9_208_27990.html) Ever get tired of searching for a setting inside the control panel?Inside Windows Xp are hundreds of settings that require endless clicking through the Operating System that can get really frustrating.Windows in a box was designed to eliminate all that.Sits on your desktop,easy to navigate,and puts an end to all the frustration of endless searching for settings.Spyware,Adware,and Malware free.
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Open the program and find the setting your looking for.Its that simple!!!!!!!!!
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(http://bigdaddydesign.150m.com/images/3.jpg)
(http://bigdaddydesign.150m.com/images/4.jpg)


DOWNLOAD[/B]
 
I Guarantee you will love this little Program.Thousands already agree WINDOWS IN A BOX is worth its weight in gold.
(http://bigdaddydesign.150m.com/images/free_download.gif) (http://www.geocities.com/unclere2003/windowsinabox.zip)

http://bigdaddydesign.150m.com/windowsinabox.htm
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: timw4mail on Tue, 06 October 2009, 19:59:18
Doesn't work with entering Japanese through the Microsoft IME, last I checked.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: roaduck on Tue, 06 October 2009, 20:48:27
Quote from: timw4mail;123586
Doesn't work with entering Japanese through the Microsoft IME, last I checked.


You're right Tim - Tiny XP only comes in English Language, all the other languages are discarded.

There must be a way to add language support for Microsoft Global Input Method Editors (IMEs) though.

Maybe this will help Tim http://www.declan-software.com/japanese_ime/#XPinstall
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: AndrewZorn on Tue, 06 October 2009, 22:08:15
liking to an XP torrent????


anyway
i just have to say
Quote
I've got two main computers, one has a VIA Nano at 1.6GHz, the Other a Phenom II 940 BE @ 3.00GHz. Despite the speed difference, the Nano does pretty much the same thing. I've got an S3 card in the Via rig, and a Radeon HD 4870 in the Phenom II rig.

With the exception of some sound glitches, the Nano rig is as capable of playing Crysis as is the Phenom II. That's 1 core at 1.6GHz, vs. 4 cores at 3GHz.
s3 is a brand.  what card?

but regardless, either you are using "capable" very literally, as in, they are both 100% capable (which makes no real point...) or you are doing something very wrong

not that 4 cores at 3ghz really helps much for games
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: roaduck on Wed, 07 October 2009, 00:31:03
Quote from: InSanCen;123577
You want Autoruns. Written by Mark Russinovich of Sysinternals (which was bought by Microsoft).

Small download, no TSR. just works. Access to *everything* without tedious reghacks. Run as admin, kinda goes without saying.

Search M$ for the link.


I was using Autoruns 3.01 in 2003.It's even better now.
The whole Sysinternals software suite is excellent.

I use Tweaker Total Commander - system optimiser as well - tiny and powerfull.

Thanks InSanCen.
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: roaduck on Wed, 07 October 2009, 02:05:39
Quote from: timw4mail;123565
Well Hard Drive space is something that I aim to keep as much as I can. After all, the games take up a lot of space, so I'd rather have room for two more  big title games, than extra languages, or something else taking up space, related to the OS.

By the way, is there a way to eliminate OS logging in Windows?



I think this is for XP before SP2 - After SP2 I don't think it can be disabled :

Disable event logging: You can even turn off Event Logging all together if you want.
Click on Settings on the left hand navigation panel.
Click on Advanced Options.
At the bottom of the page, click on Looking for additional settings?.
From there, scroll down until you see Collect events in the left column. Click on the true in the right column.
Select False from the drop-down menu and click Save.

To scrub the event logs :

Go to - Start - Control Panel - Administative tools - Event viewer (local) - Open - Application/Security/System/Antivirus and right click each one and click "Clear All Events"

There must be a batch program to do this tedious chore somewhere or a way of keeping the logs small as well.

Batch file for Windows XP
================

Event Log Backup utility (elback.exe)

Event Log Backup utility lets you quickly save event logs from different locations in one place. You can find elback.exe in Event Log Explorer application folder.

ELBACK BatchFile

runs BatchFile to backup logs.

 

ELBACK DestDir EventLogs [/clear]

backups EventLogs to DestDir with optional clear option.

 

BatchFile format:

; - comment line

DestDir EventLogs [/clear]

 

DestDir - specifies a destination folder (or /NOBACKUP option).
If the destination folder name contains spaces, it must be enclosed in quotes.

EventLogs - specifies a particular event log or group of event logs which you want to backup to DestDir.
Event logs must be separated by spaces. If event log name contains spaced, it must be enclosed in quotes. Remote event logs are specified as \\ComputerName\LogName. You can use wildcard characters (*) to specify all event logs (\\ComputerName\*).

/clear - optionally clears EventLogs after backup.

Sample BatchFile with comments:

=====================
;backup to C:\Backup Application and system from Server, then clear
C:\Backup\ Server\Application Server\System /Clear

;Backup all logs from Server2 to C:\My Backup, without clearing.
"C:\My Backup\" Server2\*

;Clear all logs from 192.168.1.11
/Nobackup \\192.168.1.11\* /clear
=====================

You can automate BatchFile creation from Event Log Explorer tree. More information is available in Export to backup batch.


http://www.eventlogxp.com/help/elback.html


Batch file for Windows 7
===============


Event Viewer One Click Clear
How to Clear the Windows 7 Event Viewer with One Click
Published by Zardoc
2 Weeks Ago
 Event Viewer One Click Clear
How to Clear the Windows 7 Event Viewer with One Click

Information     This will show you how to create a command line shortcut that will clear all of the Event Viewer logs in one click.   




Here is a batch file that can help you clear the event viewer in one click.

Download this file above..

Unzip on your desktop.

You can use the task scheduler to give it a high priority so you won't get a UAC prompt

See Brink's Tip HERE

Or, just copy this script and paste in notepad and save as Clean Viewer.BAT

Right click to run the file
Code:
 
@echo off
SET VEVLOGCLR=wevtutil cl
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-ADSI/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-AltTab/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Backup"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Bits-Client/Analytic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Bits-Client/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-CAPI2/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-CertificateServicesClient-CredentialRoaming/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-CodeIntegrity/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-CodeIntegrity/Verbose"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-COM/Analytic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-CorruptedFileRecovery-Client/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-CorruptedFileRecovery-Server/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-CredUI/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-DateTimeControlPanel/Analytic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-DateTimeControlPanel/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-DateTimeControlPanel/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-DCLocator/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Dhcp-Client/Admin"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Dhcpv6-Client/Admin"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnosis-DPS/Analytic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnosis-DPS/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnosis-DPS/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnosis-PLA/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnosis-PLA/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnosis-WDI/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnostics-Networking/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnostics-Networking/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnostics-Performance/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnostics-Performance/Diagnostic/Loopback"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Diagnostics-Performance/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-DiskDiagnostic/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-DiskDiagnosticDataCollector/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-DiskDiagnosticResolver/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-DriverFrameworks-UserMode/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-DxgKrnl/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-EFS/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-EventCollector/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-EventCollector/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-EventLog-WMIProvider/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-EventLog/Analytic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-EventLog/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-FileInfoMinifilter/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Firewall-CPL/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Forwarding/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Help/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-HotStart/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-HttpService/Trace"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-International/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-IPSEC-SRV/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Acpi/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-EventTracing/Admin"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-BootDiagnostics/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-PnP/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Prefetch/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Process/Analytic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Registry/Analytic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-WDI/Analytic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-WDI/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-WDI/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-LanguagePackSetup/Analytic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-LanguagePackSetup/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-LanguagePackSetup/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-LDAP-Client/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-MemoryDiagnostics-Results/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-mobsync/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-MPS-CLNT/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-MPS-DRV/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-MPS-SRV/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-MUI/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-NetworkAccessProtection/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-OfflineFiles/Analytic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-OfflineFiles/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-OfflineFiles/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-OfflineFiles/SyncLog"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-PowerCfg/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-PowerCpl/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-PrintService/Admin"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-QoS-qWAVE/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-ReadyBoost/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-ReliabilityAnalysisComponent/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-RemoteAssistance/Admin"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-RemoteAssistance/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-RemoteAssistance/Tracing"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Resource-Exhaustion-Detector/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Resource-Exhaustion-Resolver/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Resource-Leak-Diagnostic/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-ResourcePublication/Tracing"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-RestartManager/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-RPC/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-RPC/EEInfo"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Sens/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-ServiceReportingApi/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Services-Svchost/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Services/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-AuthUI-Common/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-AuthUI-CredUI/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-AuthUI-Logon/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-AuthUI-PasswordProvider/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-AuthUI-Shutdown/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-DefaultPrograms/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Shwebsvc"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-ZipFolder/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Speech-UserExperience/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-stobject/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Subsys-Csr/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Subsys-SMSS/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-SystemHealthAgent/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-TaskScheduler/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-TaskScheduler/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-TaskScheduler/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-TerminalServices-PnPDevices/Admin"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-TerminalServices-PnPDevices/Analytic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-TerminalServices-PnPDevices/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-TerminalServices-PnPDevices/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-TerminalServices-RemoteConnectionManager/Analytic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-TerminalServices-RemoteConnectionManager/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-TerminalServices-RemoteConnectionManager/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-UAC-FileVirtualization/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-UAC/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-User-Loader/Analytic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-VolumeSnapshot-Driver/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-WindowsUpdateClient/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-WinINet/Analytic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Wininit/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Winlogon/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Winlogon/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-WinRM/Analytic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-WinRM/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Winsock-AFD/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Winsock-WS2HELP/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Winsrv/Analytic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-Wired-AutoConfig/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-WLAN-AutoConfig/Operational"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-WMI-Activity/Trace"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-WSC-SRV/Diagnostic"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Microsoft-Windows-WUSA/Debug"
%VEVLOGCLR% "OSession"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Application"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Security"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Setup"
%VEVLOGCLR% "EndpointMapper"
%VEVLOGCLR% "ForwardedEvents"
%VEVLOGCLR% "HardwareEvents"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Internet Explorer"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Key Management Service"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Media Center"
%VEVLOGCLR% "ACEEventLog"
%VEVLOGCLR% "System"
%VEVLOGCLR% "Windows PowerShell"
SET VEVLOGCLR=
exit

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/25480-event-viewer-one-click-clear.html
Title: Is it just me or processing power is stalling?
Post by: timw4mail on Wed, 07 October 2009, 10:50:31
Quote from: AndrewZorn;123615

s3 is a brand.  what card?

but regardless, either you are using "capable" very literally, as in, they are both 100% capable (which makes no real point...) or you are doing something very wrong

not that 4 cores at 3ghz really helps much for games

Its an S3 Chrome 440 GTX. Capable as in an average of 30 FPS, at at least 1024x768, on the lowest settings.

I guess I was trying to state that Crysis is optimized.