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[bloodline]

stefcep2 wrote:

zipper wrote:

 am sitting here typing away in a web browser and other than punching the keys there is nothing else I'm doing yet the hard drive is ticking away and I've turned off indexing, defrag..so what the hell is it doing?

That's what taskmgr is for - check what's happening.
I've turned everything extraneous off and just my antivirus software does those slowdowns every now and then, mostly when joining new drives to the system or downloading something.

I know its running stuff in the background but what is it doing, in the sense that its not achieving anything tangible to the user.  Why doe sit need so much crap to run just so that i can get a window displayed on screen, make a TCP connection and move the mouse pointer and use the keyboard to type?  As this is a rant thread, I'll rant some more..

I think we've lost perspective on the hardware specs that this OS is running on: hard drives  are still 3.5 inch but store terabytes of data, that's unimaginable data density, hard drives rpm at 7200 and 10000, so data should be packed in and accessible very very quickly, we have GIGABYTES of RAM ( some are talking 8 GB !!!), 3000 mhz CPU's with on board caches bigger than system RAM of past machines, display cards capable of pushing pixels on screen at insane speeds, all communicating with multiple CPU's via super fast data buses, but I've still gotta wait for the start menu to pop up and draw itself on screen, or stay half drawn for a few seconds after i close it?  

Overall hardware specs have increased by factors of 10, 100, or 1000, inj recent years, yet the user experience is just as frustrating as ever.  What is the point of the hardware getting better if the OS just negates it all?

Or you could use a Mac... :-)

[stefcep2]

I've thought about Mac but here in Aus, Macs ARE expensive relative to the hardware specs eg Macbook Air 1.6 ghz 2gb ram 80 gb hard drive RRP $2899 Aus.  I don't really care about the single block of aluminium, ultrathin stuff.

I'm thinking Apple more and more is about style over substance.  And i don't like the way Apple makes perfectly good hardware obsolete when it feels like a series of model shouldn't be allowed to run their latest OS, which means you can get the latest Web browser etc.

I may borrow a mac for a week and see if it lives up to the hype..

[jasper]

Tried Vista on my Dual Core Athlon XP X2 5000+,4GB DDR2,blah blah blah,still runs slow compared to XP so i'll stick to that.

One other question:

We all know that the Amiga has a ram disc that keeps its data after a restart (Rad,i think it's called)and we know that ram disc utilities are available for windows...as far as i know,windows ram discs lose the contents after a reboot - are there any windows utilities out there that offer such?...or is   that part of what makes the miggy so special?

[mr_a500]

I know its running stuff in the background but what is it doing, in the sense that its not achieving anything tangible to the user. Why doe sit need so much crap to run just so that i can get a window displayed on screen, make a TCP connection and move the mouse pointer and use the keyboard to type? As this is a rant thread, I'll rant some more..

I think we've lost perspective on the hardware specs that this OS is running on: hard drives are still 3.5 inch but store terabytes of data, that's unimaginable data density, hard drives rpm at 7200 and 10000, so data should be packed in and accessible very very quickly, we have GIGABYTES of RAM ( some are talking 8 GB !!!), 3000 mhz CPU's with on board caches bigger than system RAM of past machines, display cards capable of pushing pixels on screen at insane speeds, all communicating with multiple CPU's via super fast data buses, but I've still gotta wait for the start menu to pop up and draw itself on screen, or stay half drawn for a few seconds after i close it?

Overall hardware specs have increased by factors of 10, 100, or 1000, inj recent years, yet the user experience is just as frustrating as ever. What is the point of the hardware getting better if the OS just negates it all?

EXACTLY! I have been ranting about the exact same things for the past 10 years (at least). You'd think that by 2008, Windows could at least open a frigging menu or popup without leaving the screen half drawn! User interaction should be TOP PRIORITY!

The next version of Windows will probably use the GPU to speed up the GUI, but I bet they'll add loads of useless crap (and DRM checks) just to slow it down again. Then we'll see posted comments like "why is my 4Ghz 8-core PC so [beep]ing slow!".

It's a tragedy that BeOS didn't catch on. They had the right idea. On a 200Mhz PC with 64Mb RAM, it boots fully in 5 seconds. Window opening is nearly instantaneous. Applications open in 1-3 seconds. Everything feels fast - like it should be. BeOS is old and dead now, but if it had survived, I'm sure it would absolutely blow Vista away. (on the same hardware, running applications of the same complexity)

I may borrow a mac for a week and see if it lives up to the hype..

I did the same and found it didn't live up to the hype. I was extremely disappointed. It's better than Windows (what isn't?), but it can still be very frustrating and limiting. Linux was even more disappointing.

[Lorraine]

/

[Trev]

@jasper

I can see how it might be done on a Windows box, but the recoverable RAM disk was designed to solve a performance problem that no longer exists: running a DOS from floppy disk(s).

[stefcep2]

the encouraging thing this time around is that long-term PC users themselves are having enough of their hardware being seriously hobbled by Vista.  The PC market is maturing, a large slice of it is onto the second or third OS, and many are far from happy that it takes them longer to do things they did before on new hardware that SHOULD BE far faster.  If MS "does another Vista", I hope that it might be the tipping point where people just say " Forget it, MS.  I'll stick to my XP machine until its circuits burn out, and no money for you this year or the next or the next."  History tells us no empire has lasted forever.  

[marcfrick2112]

by stefcep2 on 2008/12/26 5:51:55

the encouraging thing this time around is that long-term PC users themselves are having enough of their hardware being seriously hobbled by Vista. The PC market is maturing, a large slice of it is onto the second or third OS, and many are far from happy that it takes them longer to do things they did before on new hardware that SHOULD BE far faster. If MS "does another Vista", I hope that it might be the tipping point where people just say " Forget it, MS. I'll stick to my XP machine until its circuits burn out, and no money for you this year or the next or the next." History tells us no empire has lasted forever.

Very well put, stefcep2 !! The sad fact is, however, is that the Wintel cartel has nearly a stranglehold on the PC market. I have heard employees at computer stores (read: PC stores) ouright lie to get someone to buy a PC versus a Mac, or Linux machine (what's a MEEGA ) There may be hope, tho, some Linux distros are getting almost idiot-proof... typing this on my Xandros (based on Debian) machine now  :-D

Worst thing that ever happened on this machine, my modem stopped working once, I just re-ran the 'Connection Wizard', after 5 mins., all was well. And it's not too shabby for a 633Mhz Celeron w/ 128 MB RAM ... (But Xandros' Control Center says it's a 631MhZ Celeron :-? ... Oh well...

[Trev]

Microsoft does have issues with scalability in their desktop products, and while most of the operating environment is modular, the relationships between various components aren't well documented.

I think we also need to consider the state of the hardware market. CPUs today are pretty much the same speed they were five years ago, and not every software problem benefits from parallel processing, larger caches, higher bus speeds, and the other changes the industry has made to mask the performance cap.

Salespeople, particularly at department and electronics stores, are usually just poorly educated. They base their recommendations on marketing and sales incentives. Spending sixteen hours a day in World of Warcraft does not turn a salesperson into a PC expert. ;-)

EDIT: And the fact that everyone assumes "PC" means "Microsoft Windows running on an x86[-64]-compatible processor" is evidence of the success of Apple's attempts to differentiate themselves. "PC" used to mean all personal computers, IBM, Apple, Commodore, Atari, et al included.

[recidivist]

  I have joined the Vista involuntary buyers club;but it really doesn't seem that bad so far,as my new Compaq AMD X2 feels pretty snappy.
 I have burnt ubuntu amd64 and will try that AFTER burning  a set of restore disks since none are included with new computers.

 I may end up using Kubuntu,like Kde better than Gnome.
 Matter of fact I am online now with Kubuntu/Konqueror running on my HP (usually XP) desktop.Amiga.org looks fine with this browser.
 
 We just have to use the best available tool .