Merged AMD-ATI monster embarks on monopoly-busting

Walter Mitty wrote:
"Allan C Cybulskie" writes:

Walter Mitty wrote:

You see, it didnt take long. This is nothing more than yet another rabid
anti-ms idiot that hates Bill Gates yet is quite happy to use his OS and
play games. Ive never understood this people. Dont like it? Dont use it.

Why do people use it? Because they want to play PC games and despite
its annoyances it's the easiest and most certain way to guarantee that
you can play any PC game. Your comment here is like saying that you
don't understand people who claim to hate work and yet are happy to
work their 40 hours a week and get their paycheque at the end of the
week. If they don't like work, they should just not do it.
Unfortunately, the end result -- money, in that case -- outweighs the
annoyance of working. But they can still want things to be better.
The same thing applies here. It's clear to me that Windows is
generally an inferior and annoying OS, but since it's the easiest way
to guarantee that I can play all PC games I'm willing to use it.

If the other alternatives were so good, how come no one uses them?


Personally I do. But you missed my point really. See the other post.

No, you missed mine.

You and Ben are implying that gamers could choose not to use Windows if
we wanted to. My point is that since most games are WRITTEN for
Windows that choice is not as practical as you and he imply.

"Allan C Cybulskie" writes:

Walter Mitty wrote:
"Allan C Cybulskie" writes:

Benjamin Gawert wrote:

This is nothing more than yet another rabid anti-ms idiot that hates
Bill Gates yet is quite happy to use his OS and play games. Ive never
understood this people. Dont like it? Dont use it.

Exactly. No-one forces them to use Windows, and there are many
alternatives which also leaves them enough room for complaining ;-)

Like?

The only credible, readily-accessible one that I can think of is Linux,
and I'm pretty sure that that one won't run all Windows games out of
the box, without tweaking. Add to the fact that it isn't generally

This is the point. People like above spout nonsense about certain OS
features. But are quite willing to use the SW for games etc.

Because they don't have a practical choice.

They get a
bee in their bonnet about something like .NET with no regard for all the
other stuff that makes up their OS. Why doesnt he refuse to use the
"stupid registry" or the "crap tcp/ip stack"?

Because he has no choice: the games use them. Right now, none of the
software he wants to runs uses .NET, as he said. And I'm sure he'd use
.NET happily if he thought it worked [grin].


installed on basic systems and so you'd basically be left installing a
new OS and then at a minimum tweaking it for every game you wanted to
play, this "alternative" seems like an alternative only technically and
not practically. In short, we COULD do that, but it would be an
incredible annoyance to.


So windows isnt so bad then? Good. Personally I only use windows for
games and its damn good at it.

This says nothing about how good Windows is ... and says more about
either how much of a monopoly MS has on the OS market (everyone makes
their games to run on that PS) or how bad the other OS' are at running
games.

Basically, we have to use it not because it is good, but because the
game companies write their games for it.


.NET is basically a shared library to facilitate application
development. And to suggest that application writers should bypass its
features and do it all themsleves is (a) incredibly stupid and (b) leads
to *even more* bloatware sicne each app would be re-inventing the wheel.

Well, let me challenge (a): it might not be incredibly stupid. Whether
it is or not depends on how flexible .NET is (how hard is it to massage
.NET to doing something that you want to do that is not necessarily
standard) and how good .NET is. If .NET is inflexible and buggy, then
it is not stupid to bypass it and is instead SMART to bypass it. It's
all in knowing what it can do and what you want to do.


All SW is buggy to a degree. THe OP made an unsubstantiated link between
a desktop corruption and .NET. Millions of people use .net. It is not
obsolete. ATI had a reason to use it. The programmers are not "lazy" to
use it. And .NET is there to give flexibility and ease application
development. It is part of windows. It is not evil. It is there for a
reason. The OP should live with it and shut up spouting nonsense.

"Allan C Cybulskie" writes:

Walter Mitty wrote:
"Allan C Cybulskie" writes:

Walter Mitty wrote:

You see, it didnt take long. This is nothing more than yet another rabid
anti-ms idiot that hates Bill Gates yet is quite happy to use his OS and
play games. Ive never understood this people. Dont like it? Dont use it.

Why do people use it? Because they want to play PC games and despite
its annoyances it's the easiest and most certain way to guarantee that
you can play any PC game. Your comment here is like saying that you
don't understand people who claim to hate work and yet are happy to
work their 40 hours a week and get their paycheque at the end of the
week. If they don't like work, they should just not do it.
Unfortunately, the end result -- money, in that case -- outweighs the
annoyance of working. But they can still want things to be better.
The same thing applies here. It's clear to me that Windows is
generally an inferior and annoying OS, but since it's the easiest way
to guarantee that I can play all PC games I'm willing to use it.

If the other alternatives were so good, how come no one uses them?


Personally I do. But you missed my point really. See the other post.

No, you missed mine.


No, I didnt. Really.

You and Ben are implying that gamers could choose not to use Windows
if

No : that anyone, not just gamers.

we wanted to. My point is that since most games are WRITTEN for
Windows that choice is not as practical as you and he imply.


No one said it was practical. I said that if he doesnt want to put with
the OS as it is then dont use it. Practical? mabye not. But it is the
OS, it is the OS for games so either use it or not. If "microshaft" are
such bollexes and .net is "such crap" etc etc etc then make a statement
and dont use it. Simple. But yes, if you choose not to use it then you
lose your gaming abiity (well, cedega does run dc games on linux).

me? Personally I think MS OSs are rather bloated and ugly and have
indeed moved to Linux for everything but games. But thats not to say I
dont see the advantages of windows in certain cases.

* Allan C Cybulskie:

Exactly. No-one forces them to use Windows, and there are many
alternatives which also leaves them enough room for complaining ;-)

Like?

Consoles for example. No gfx drivers, no .NET you are so afraid of, no
system instabilities. And even there you can buy consoles that have
nothing from evil(tm) Microsoft (Playstation, Nintendo). For most people
complaining about Windows the little drawbacks of consoles (limited gfx,
limited controllers, more expensive games) are nothing when they just
can avoid .NET...

Probably the way to go...

Benjamin

* Allan C Cybulskie:

I believe the original comment -- and you can correct me if I'm wrong
--was that the person installed .NET and noticed both problems, and
then simply uninstalled .NET and the problems went away.

correct...

If this is all that was done, it is perfectly reasonable for them to
assume that .NET caused the problems.

Yeah, it's as reasonable as to say that the war in Irak caused this...

and you comment that ".NET doesn't cause this" is an assumption that
most designers of software quickly learn not to make; what you mean
to say is ".NET SHOULDN'T cause this problem" [grin].

Nope. I really know that .NET doesn't do alter the desktop layout....

Note that if it creates or alters a user as you claimed it did that
could also revert the default desktop configuration to that of that
user, thus causing the problem. So it isn't even that unlikely that
it could be the result of .NET installation.

It's much more likely that he hosed something else up (usually people
install .NET only if at least one program needs it, so it can also be
the program he installed). My experience shows that the majority of
people blaming something totally unrelated for their problems rarely
tell the whole story...

Benjamin

Benjamin Gawert wrote:
* Allan C Cybulskie:

Exactly. No-one forces them to use Windows, and there are many
alternatives which also leaves them enough room for complaining ;-)

Like?

Consoles for example.

I considered this (mostly to avoid upgrading as opposed to anything
else) and actually own a PS2. The problem is that I can't play CoH on
the PS2 or WoW or DAoC or Oblivion or Baldur's Gate or ... well, you
get the idea. There are certain games that you can only get on the PC.
And since those generally are written for Windows ... well, you can
see why this isn't a practical choice.

No gfx drivers, no .NET you are so afraid of,

I think you've forgotten who you were replying to ... I've never said
anything about being afraid of .NET, or even that it isn't good ...

Walter Mitty wrote:
"Allan C Cybulskie" writes:



.NET is basically a shared library to facilitate application
development. And to suggest that application writers should bypass its
features and do it all themsleves is (a) incredibly stupid and (b) leads
to *even more* bloatware sicne each app would be re-inventing the wheel.

Well, let me challenge (a): it might not be incredibly stupid. Whether
it is or not depends on how flexible .NET is (how hard is it to massage
.NET to doing something that you want to do that is not necessarily
standard) and how good .NET is. If .NET is inflexible and buggy, then
it is not stupid to bypass it and is instead SMART to bypass it. It's
all in knowing what it can do and what you want to do.


All SW is buggy to a degree.

True enough. But if someone else's libraries are known to be
especially buggy -- and I'm not saying .NET IS, BTW -- it might make
sense to create your own because if there are bugs in your own code, it
is easy for you to change it. It's not that simple when it's the code
of another company, as they fix it when they get around to it, which
screws over your customers in the meantime.

THe OP made an unsubstantiated link between
a desktop corruption and .NET.

Well, from what he saw -- if accurate -- he has good reason to think
that there might be a link there. He could, of course, be wrong but so
could those who say that .NET just couldn't possibly do anything in any
situation to produce that behaviour.

As I said earlier, as a designer I've learned that sometimes side
effects of what you intended to do can be really, really odd [grin].

Millions of people use .net. It is not
obsolete. ATI had a reason to use it. The programmers are not "lazy" to
use it. And .NET is there to give flexibility and ease application
development. It is part of windows. It is not evil. It is there for a
reason. The OP should live with it and shut up spouting nonsense.

I never supported any of these claims, so this is all irrelevant to
what I, personally, challenged in your posts. And the OP has decided
to not use .NET since currently he can avoid programs that use it. So
it seems like he's living with it as well as you are, since you seem to
constantly want to defend it as being GOOD. I don't think you have any
more support for that claim than he does that it's bad (and the number
of people using it is not sufficient support; they may simply not have
the resources to avoid using it).

Walter Mitty wrote:
"Allan C Cybulskie" writes:

Walter Mitty wrote:
"Allan C Cybulskie" writes:

Walter Mitty wrote:

You see, it didnt take long. This is nothing more than yet another rabid
anti-ms idiot that hates Bill Gates yet is quite happy to use his OS and
play games. Ive never understood this people. Dont like it? Dont use it.

Why do people use it? Because they want to play PC games and despite
its annoyances it's the easiest and most certain way to guarantee that
you can play any PC game. Your comment here is like saying that you
don't understand people who claim to hate work and yet are happy to
work their 40 hours a week and get their paycheque at the end of the
week. If they don't like work, they should just not do it.
Unfortunately, the end result -- money, in that case -- outweighs the
annoyance of working. But they can still want things to be better.
The same thing applies here. It's clear to me that Windows is
generally an inferior and annoying OS, but since it's the easiest way
to guarantee that I can play all PC games I'm willing to use it.

If the other alternatives were so good, how come no one uses them?


Personally I do. But you missed my point really. See the other post.

No, you missed mine.


No, I didnt. Really.

You and Ben are implying that gamers could choose not to use Windows
if

No : that anyone, not just gamers.

I'm assuming that you realize that "anyone" includes the subgroup
"gamers", right? Thus, that's the claim you guys implicitly make ...


we wanted to. My point is that since most games are WRITTEN for
Windows that choice is not as practical as you and he imply.


No one said it was practical.

I never said that you SAID it ... I was VERY careful to use term
"imply" [grin].

Your argument is that he should just say "No" to Windows if he doesn't
like it. That implies that he could, practically, do so. Well, he
can't; to do so would mean he'd have to give up playing PC games. The
fact that he'd like to play PC games does not mean that he has to thus
avoid saying anythng bad about Windows or saying that he doesn't like
it. He wouldn't use it if not using it was practical, but it isn't.
So he has to use it, but that does not mean that he does or has to like
it.


me? Personally I think MS OSs are rather bloated and ugly and have
indeed moved to Linux for everything but games. But thats not to say I
dont see the advantages of windows in certain cases.

There's no real evidence that he doesn't either. He just dislikes some
of the bad things about it like .NET -- in his opinion. His opinion
does not need to be yours.

Benjamin Gawert wrote:
* Allan C Cybulskie:

I believe the original comment -- and you can correct me if I'm wrong
--was that the person installed .NET and noticed both problems, and
then simply uninstalled .NET and the problems went away.

correct...

If this is all that was done, it is perfectly reasonable for them to
assume that .NET caused the problems.

Yeah, it's as reasonable as to say that the war in Irak caused this...

As far as I'm concerned, if I install something and something breaks
and when I uninstall it it works, that's a pretty good indication that
it's likely that that was what caused the problem. It's the most
resaonable conclusion. I fail to see how you could assume that any
conclusion is more reasonable other than your insistence that .NET
COULDN'T cause that problem despite my pointing out one credible case
where it COULD.


and you comment that ".NET doesn't cause this" is an assumption that
most designers of software quickly learn not to make; what you mean
to say is ".NET SHOULDN'T cause this problem" [grin].

Nope. I really know that .NET doesn't do alter the desktop layout....

No, you know that it doesn't TRY to do that. All you can say is that
if it does, it's a side-effect and not intentional.


Note that if it creates or alters a user as you claimed it did that
could also revert the default desktop configuration to that of that
user, thus causing the problem. So it isn't even that unlikely that
it could be the result of .NET installation.

It's much more likely that he hosed something else up (usually people
install .NET only if at least one program needs it, so it can also be
the program he installed). My experience shows that the majority of
people blaming something totally unrelated for their problems rarely
tell the whole story...

Now, assuming that you are stopping short of out and out calling him a
liar ... what if that WAS all he did? Even if he just uninstalled .NET
and the problem went away, that would be a good indication that
something related to the .NET installation was the problem ...

(I suspect this is all related to that "user addition" thing that
others have said that it must do. Perhaps he logs in as a different
user after that point and so ends up with a different desktop?).

Walter Mitty wrote:

"Allan C Cybulskie" writes:

No, you missed mine.

No, I didnt. Really.

Yes, you did. Really.

You and Ben are implying that gamers could choose not to use Windows
if

No : that anyone, not just gamers.

Idiot.

we wanted to. My point is that since most games are WRITTEN for
Windows that choice is not as practical as you and he imply.


No one said it was practical. I said that if he doesnt want to put with
the OS as it is then dont use it. Practical? mabye not. But it is the
OS, it is the OS for games so either use it or not. If "microshaft" are
such bollexes and .net is "such crap" etc etc etc then make a statement
and dont use it. Simple. But yes, if you choose not to use it then you
lose your gaming abiity (well, cedega does run dc games on linux).

Idiot.