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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
| Microsoft on PC Gaming @ GameSpot |
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GameSpot is reporting a <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/03/10/news_6120176.html" target="_blank">discussion</a> they had with Microsoft Windows, graphics, and gaming technologies general manager Dean Lester about PC Gaming, Longhorn, XNA and more. There's some interesting comments about the online PC market being around $2 Billion, which when added to standard retail sales makes the PC gaming market bigger than otherwise reported, along with cool stuff on their future plans. Here's a snip on 'Tray and Play':<blockquote><em>In the meantime, Lester reaffirmed his group's commitment to making Windows gaming "a simple, straightforward, and robust experience" that isn't marked by long game-install times, driver conflicts, and downloading patches. To this end, we were shown a demonstration of "Tray and Play" with the PC version of Need For Speed Underground 2. "Tray and Play" is exactly what it sounds like--dropping a game disc into an optical drive and loading it up immediately, rather than having to install it to a hard drive. True to form, the game itself cut straight to a start-up screen in less than a minute (including the game's own built-in load time). Lester suggested that this functionality will take advantage of the generally faster optical drives that most consumers have, and that some games might be able to run directly off the disc, or use minimal caching. This new feature allegedly won't be exclusive to Microsoft's upcoming Longhorn Windows platform and could theoretically be put into games today, provided it gets planned for in development early on. Lester also commented further on the particular strengths of Windows PCs as a gaming platform--that it continues to be a strong platform both for casual gamers who may be looking to sneak a quick game in between e-mail and Web-browsing sessions, and for massively multiplayer games, thanks to the proliferation of broadband Internet and widespread use of keyboards, which continue to seem like the best tools for chatting and socializing online.</em></blockquote> |
Tue Mar 15, 2005 2:14 am |
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Wolfie_
Guest
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Dean Lester is quoted as saying:
"Lester suggested that this functionality will take advantage of the generally faster optical drives that most consumers have, and that some games might be able to run directly off the disc"
Hmm, I'm not so sure about this, by my calculations a 48x ROM drive can deliver data at ~7Mbit/sec (48*150Kbit/sec) or ~8.2Mbit/sec for a 56x ROM drive, whereas serial ATA (SATA) drives can deliver data at up to 150Mbit/sec so unless I'm missing something here, fail to see where "faster" is coming from, and then there'd be the noise (my CD drive sounds more like a jet-plane preparing for take-off when it spins up, whereas when I first got my SATA drive, I kept having to look at the activity light to re-assure myself it was doing something).
So speaking purely from my own POV, I can't see this as a positive development and think MS could spend their technical boffins time on more worthwhile enterprises.
Dean Lester also said:
"Windows gaming "a simple, straightforward, and robust experience" that isn't marked by long game-install times, driver conflicts, and downloading patches"
As for "long game-install times", see comment above, would rather do one "long" game-install and then every time I play the game, have game-files read off my significately faster HDD.
Total absence of driver conflicts would be near impossible, unless PCs move to a more "game console" concept one-size-fit-all or at least largely cut down the number of PC hardware combinaions, ie, reduce the consumer choices.
No patches to download!?? Gee, Microsoft (and any other game publisher for that matter) release games only once the developer have completed the game fully and they've tested until it's bug-free!! I'd like to see that! However in the real world, no developer can test software under every possible condition and so find every possible bug and therefore not need to release a patch.
Personally I like patches, as often the developer uses the effort to also add some extra content, this is a good thing (for the consumer).
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Tue Mar 15, 2005 2:21 am |
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