Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario

[Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>]

On Monday 05 December 2005 21:56, Zwane Mwaikambo wrote:
> Do you think this opensource hardware could keep up with nvidia and ati
> hardware development? Joe sixpack is all about the fastest hardware.

Not really.  The early adopters and cutting edge gamers are, sure.  For 
everybody else its price/performance and "good enough to run my games".  The 
playstation 2 is how many years old now?  But it's still selling fresh 
copies, and will until the PS3 comes out.  (And even then, people will still 
play PS2 games.)

Like everything else, this is application driven.  If it runs World of 
Warcraft and City of Heroes, there's a market for it.  May be a cheap market, 
but it's there.  Especially if it fits nicely in laptops, has low power 
consumption, doesn't need a cooling fan...

(Also, keep in mind that half of graphics performance is how much texture 
memory the sucker has and how fast the ram it talks to is.)

(I remember the days when games had a selection menu so you could tell it what 
kind of sound card you had.  3D video cards are still there.  Won't last 
forever.)

Rob
-- 
Steve Ballmer: Innovation!  Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word.
I do not think it means what you think it means.