Solved Switch to Linux

Nobody stops you trying Linux. Just don't make newbies believe it can fully replace Windows and make their computer rocket fast as by magic. This is not going to happen, otherwise its user base would be significantly larger.

jimbo45 said:

Actually companies like Red Hat/IBM , and SUSE get loads of dosh from the corporate market by supplying consultancy and maintenance contracts for their enterprise server products.

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Redhat screwed them selves a long time ago. Nothing there anymore for the general user. They're just using volunteers to rake in more money and giving nothing back.

spapakons said:

Nobody stops you trying Linux. Just don't make newbies believe it can fully replace Windows and make their computer rocket fast as by magic. This is not going to happen, otherwise its user base would be significantly greater.

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Never heard anybody tell a newbie that.

I've heard. hey if you aren't happy with Windows, or windows pricing, or windows restrictions, you can always try Linux. There is a learning curve, but it's free and you can get it from X. Also, there are distributions available with lighter weight GUI environments that require fewer system resources which may work better for lower spec machines.

This would be a choice of faster but limited or slightly slow (which can be made faster) and complete. I choose complete.

SlicEnDicE said:

Back in the day I had a dual CPU system with a Voodoo 3 3000 card.

When we played with friends, I ran Linux, while others used Windows. In Unreal Tournament I hosted the server on a separate instance and had another one for the actual game play. Even with 2 instance on my system, I had twice the frame rate as my friends. Good times.

That MX 2 400 was a faster card, but colors where "washed out", thus I stuck with my Voodoo. nVidia cheating a bit to seem like it's better. Same was going on between ATI and nVidia for a very long time. At that time I lost interest in computing altogether so I have a huge IT gap.

Fun fact though: I used Linux way before the world knew such thing even existed. It was pure terminal but very powerful already then.

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We had 15 PCs at that Net/Gaming Club - 14x with Voodoo (i forgot which model - but more than capable to run Quake 2 and 3, Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, Red Alert 2, Diablo 2, Starcraft, AoE 2, TES III: Morrowind, Delta Force 2 and 3 but only on some machines - tho, the GPU was not the issue) + 1 RIVA TNT2 + Unknown (server). Lowest PCs had AMD k6-2/3 and best configs - had Duron and Athlon (started with 8 PCS - the Durons and Athlons were bought last).

The Duron 1300 + GeForce 2 MX400 was my personal system - bought around 2002 - since that Net/Gaming Club clossed (having a PC at home became the norm - but many parents bought a PC so their kids would stop going to Net/Gaming Clubs :). You sure it wasn't Riva TNT2 who had washed up colors? Cause i do remember NVIDIA Riva TNT - standing out in this regard (compared to system using Voodoo cards). But GeForce 2 MX 400, not so much...


As he mentioned in the video - a main disadvantage for GF 2 MX 400 was a lack of support for Glide Games: List of Glide games - PCGamingWiki PCGW - bugs, fixes, crashes, mods, guides and improvements for every PC game For me was ok - cause i wasn't a retro gamer (played only upcoming titles) - but some preferred a good Voodoo card for that reason alone (gaming nostalgia). Had that system for 7 years - using Win 2K and Win XP (after upgrading the ram to 512 MB and the GPU for a GeForce 6600 GT). Skipped over Vista - jumping directly to Win 7 with next system upgrade. Used to test A LOT of apps - looking for perfect app for any given task (by my tastes, needs and standards). That's also when Ubuntu picked my curiosity - so was basically installed on pretty modern hardware for that time (my 1st ATi card = ATi Radeon HD 4800 :).

I'm fairly certain nVidia cards had worse color reproduction compared to the competition for a very long time past GF 2. I don't recall exactly when this changed though...I also don't recall if it could be changed in the driver...but defaults did not look quite as vibrant as on ATI cards.

The TNT cards were amazing for their time. :)

Linux offers many desktops and the two commonly used package formats: deb. and rpm.

With the former, you have Canonical/Ubuntu and the latter in RedHat/Fedora and SUSE/openSUSE.

My first nVidia card was a Geforce 3 so I suppose the color problem had been fixed. My previous card was a Matrox Mystique 2MB (wow!) and the colors were much better when I replaced that with the GeForce 3. Also I remember some ATI cards (now known as AMD) had worse colors than nVidia and the screen seemed to have the sharpness too high. Thankfully with the official drivers these color issues can be fixed since Windows 7 by calibrating the monitor colors from Control Panel. The first step is to press Auto on the monitor to have the best possible image and then optionally set colors to 6500K or custom with all values the same (such as 80,80,80 or 100,100,100). Then use the color calibration in Control Panel to improve image. Don't forget to also adjust ClearType to also improve text.

SlicEnDicE said:

I'm fairly certain nVidia cards had worse color reproduction compared to the competition for a very long time past GF 2. I don't recall exactly when this changed though...I also don't recall if it could be changed in the driver...but defaults did not look quite as vibrant as on ATI cards.

The TNT cards were amazing for their time. :)

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Clients took it as punishment - if i assigned them the system with Riva TNT2. Colors do look slightly washed on Riva TNT2 (Pro too) - compared to Voodoo 3 3000:


Thing is - during that time, also used mostly a CRT Display (played most games at 800x600 85 Hz / 60 Hz used to give me head aches) - while the first LCD had a VA Panel. That being said, can't say that i noticed any color reproduction inconveniences with the Video Cards i used. Around that time - i started working in IT sells & servicing - so had access to any type of hardware. Quality wise - I'm reasonably pretentious (keep my distance from overpriced products - but don't put up with crappy products either - if there's something better at same price :). In all this years - while upgrading Displays - i did sent back more than half for one reason or another (dead pixel, moire effect, unreasonable amount of back light bleeding or any other type of issue - especially bad/weird colors reproduction).

I don't recall what the issue was. All I remember that it was only present in games. Maybe it had to do with texture compression algorithms...? Or games defaulting to different textures depending on the card you use and that there was no way to change this in game.

The other day a video showed up in my "recommended list" in youtube about Matrox video cards. I seem to dimly (everything from that era is a little dim) remember having a Matrox card, perhaps in my old Athlon XP 1800+ from the turn of the century, but not too sure.

My Matrox Mystique was OK back then, I didn't play any demanding games. Also I bought the Rainbow Runner daughterboard which could capture video from an analog AV or S-Video source. Great to start a little cartoon collection. Hardware was too limited then to capture anything more than 10-15 minutes. I even remember using a hardware MPEG2 decoder PCI card in order to watch DVDs in our humble Pentium.

SlicEnDicE said:

I don't recall what the issue was. All I remember that it was only present in games. Maybe it had to do with texture compression algorithms...? Or games defaulting to different textures depending on the card you use and that there was no way to change this in game.

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More than likely was a case of Glide (which Nvidia GeForce didn't support) vs D3D. After all - Glide was developed by 3DFX and for awhile they used to be the only show in town. Here's some obvious examples:


3DFX Voodoo3 2000, using 3DFX reference drivers version 1.07.00 (Glide renderer)


VS

Nvidia GeForce FX 5900XT using Nvidia reference drivers version 45.23 (Direct3D renderer)


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3DFX Voodoo3 2000, using 3DFX reference drivers version 1.07.00 (Glide renderer)


VS

Nvidia GeForce FX 5900XT using Nvidia reference drivers version 45.23 (Direct3D renderer)

==============

3DFX Voodoo3 2000, using 3DFX reference drivers version 1.07.00 (Glide renderer)


Nvidia GeForce FX 5900XT using Nvidia reference drivers version 45.23 (Direct3D renderer)



Different API different support and way of rendering textures. After 3DFX went bankrupt - Glide pretty much went down the drain (did became open source eventually - but not really much point to it without dedicated hardware for acceleration). No point in buying Voodoo cards either (if not retro-gamer).

In that Unreal Tournament example, were S3 compressed textures applied? Because that is how I recall the color reproduction comparing Voodoo vs GF. In all the other examples the issue is the other way around it seems...vibrance gone.

neves said:

More than likely was a case of Glide (which Nvidia GeForce didn't support) vs D3D. After all - Glide was developed by 3DFX and for awhile they used to be the only show in town. Here's some obvious examples:


3DFX Voodoo3 2000, using 3DFX reference drivers version 1.07.00 (Glide renderer)

VS

Nvidia GeForce FX 5900XT using Nvidia reference drivers version 45.23 (Direct3D renderer)

=========

3DFX Voodoo3 2000, using 3DFX reference drivers version 1.07.00 (Glide renderer)

VS

Nvidia GeForce FX 5900XT using Nvidia reference drivers version 45.23 (Direct3D renderer)

==============

3DFX Voodoo3 2000, using 3DFX reference drivers version 1.07.00 (Glide renderer)

Nvidia GeForce FX 5900XT using Nvidia reference drivers version 45.23 (Direct3D renderer)

List of Windows games which look best when using 3DFX Glide \ VOGONS

www.vogons.org

Different API different support and way of rendering textures. After 3DFX went bankrupt - Glide pretty much went down the drain (did became open source eventually - but not really much point to it without dedicated hardware for acceleration). No point in buying Voodoo cards either (if not retro-gamer).

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No need to buy a Voodoo card. There are Glide wrappers that translate the Glide API to DirectX in real time.

spapakons said:

No need to buy a Voodoo card. There are Glide wrappers that translate the Glide API to DirectX in real time.

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That was about a distant past prior to 2000. Personally, i'm not into 16 bit pixelated glitchy old games anymore. 2D Games with 3D Models like "Pathfinder: Kingmaker" or "Pillars of Eternity" - is my limit of older graphics i can still appreciate and enjoy.

If you are old enough to have played games in Hercules graphics (monochrome, usually green screen) or CGA (only 4 colors), you appreciate simple games with colorful 2D graphics. Today's gamers will not play anything without 3D graphics appealing in their eyes. Back then gameplay was much better because graphics and sound were very primitive. Today all they care about is visuals and gameplay suffers. Thankfully even an old computer can be used for retro games, DosBox for DOS games, MAME for arcade games and so on.

Again with your egocentric remarks (thinking your tastes and way of thinking should apply to everyone).

Loved games from a very young age: Atari, Amiga, Comodore64, Arcades - running games like Space Invaders (this not very nice game ate lots of my coins - just because was that easy to entertain), Sega, Nintendo, Super-Nintendo, PlayStation 1st and up to 6th generation - and then switched to PC around the time PS One 7th - > 9th was released. Around that time i also enjoyed Cartoon Network's childish cartoons (it's how i learned English) - but i'm 41, it's been over 33 years since the last time i enjoyed that type of entertainment. Same goes for movies and especially music. As i grew older - my tastes evolved (it's a normal human process). Gaming wise - graphics changed/evolved (beyond any expectations) - but claiming that only in the past you could find good games - is complete and utter BS.

Same as in the past - there's Good Games, Decent Games, Meh Games, Bad Games, Horrible Games. This part hasn't changed - only the people (who used to be children back then) - changed (while now many have kids of their own some even grand-children). If anything ... there's TO MANY Good Games released this day - but i simply don't have the time to play even 5% of them. Epic Games has this weekly promotions - where they're giving away paid games for free (promotion available only for couple of days) - and i can't even find the time to try them anymore. I play like 1 game the whole year (mainly turn based RPG) - but if i make time for a game - it's usually objectively awesome (that OFC - that is if you enjoy this type of genre / Shooter fans - get bored easily played turn based games). For example: https://store.steampowered.com/app/560130/Pillars_of_Eternity_II_Deadfire/


Or even Baldur's Gate 3 more recently, Personally - i found all games from Larian Studios enjoyable (they understan my tastes and others alike). Tho, maybe you wouldn't like it. You stopped playing games at one point - and similar to your take on Linux, you concluded that games are just bad - just because you never aquire the taste for modern titles (or even starting with year 2000+). Linux and Gaming - are two subject where you simply way to inexperienced to be able to reach/form valid opinions/conclusions. While the egocentric part - where you keep generalizing your personal tastes (as if they apply to all - or they should) - is purlly anoying/cringe.

It may appear like games today are worse than before. But that's probably just because it's harder to find the really good ones when there are so many to choose from. 30 years ago, the selection was a lot more limited.

Some games were really good, others not so much. Same applies today. I somewhat agree though, that many modern titles focus more on the visuals than the actual game play. Some game companies even takes it too far and ruin the whole gaming experience by filling gaps with too much cinematics and too little gameplay. One example is the Lego series. First titles in the series were really good, but the newer the title the less you play and the more you spend time watching cutscenes. They've taken it to a level where it's really annoying as it completely disrupts the game flow.

But yeah, every single year since I played the first game (~40 years), there has always been some gold titles. It's just a matter of weeding them out from the masses of garbage.

I didn't said all old games were good and all new games are crap. Just that older games should have good gameplay to sell because they could not attract players with their limited graphics and sound. Today there are good games of course but most rely on visuals without caring for game play anymore. As usual you misunderstood my post. Also I don't think Linux is crap, just not a match for Windows and not as easy to use as you claim.