Posted 10/03/2009 at 05:18:29pm

When can we expect MPC to review the pre-release board(s)? 

Posted 08/04/2009 at 09:51:34pm

I have what I hope is a MaxPC response-worthy question that isn't useless banter about subscriptions vs online publishing, the less-than-expected Dream Machine article, or the my-build-is-better egotism.

Direct from the MaxPC mag and online "Best of the Best" list, the MSI Eclipse SLI that is listed as the best LGA1366 board was not used in the Dream Machine. Instead, the Asus P6T Deluxe 2.0 was used. So that leaves one to wonder...

 Is the Asus a better board than the MSI? If so, then why is the Asus board not listed on the Best of the Best list?

There are other parts that this same question applies to, but being in the market for building a new PC, this one is most crucial to me. 

Thanks in advance for any responses. 

Posted 07/19/2009 at 11:27:03am

I am a network engineer and here is the best analogy I can give you to help understand the difference between latency and bandwidth and why more bandwidth may not affect latency.

<analogy>

If you are driving from New York to Los Angelos, maintain posted speed limits, and there is no other traffic on the roads (don't we wish!!), it will still take you as long to get there (latency) regardless of whether you are driving on a 8-lane interstate highway (high bandwidth) or a 2-lane state highway (low bandwidth).

The times when the interstate helps is when there is lot of other traffic (bit torrents, streaming video, etc) that would slow you down from maintaining the posted speed limit on the 2-lane highway. You can move more cars (data) at the posted speed limit on a 8-lane interstate than you can on a 2-lane state highway.  

</analogy>

The statement that you you will always get better ping from a server 50 miles from your house than the one 1000 miles away is a little bit of a misstatement. While odds are higher that will be the case, that's not a definite. A lot of that could depend on the ISP of site hosting the server and your ISP. For (hypothetical) example, if my ISP is AT&T and the server is at a location that has Comcast/Mediacomm/other cable provider, it is very possible that the way AT&T routes my data may send me from New York to Atlanta, to Miami, to Chicago, back to New York, 50 miles away from my house to the server, because that is the path it knows to take to get out of the AT&T network and on to the cable provider network. Internet traffic traverses a large collection of routers to get your data where you want it to go.

As a helpful tip, if you want to determine where your latency is coming from and what path your data takes to get where it's going, use the "traceroute" tool within Windows command line to watch the path your traffic takes as well as three average response times from each hop it takes to get from point A to point B. The context to use from the command prompt is "tracert <domain name or IP address>", for example, "tracert maximumpc.com". This won't really fix the problem, but at least you will know where the slowdown is happening. 

I sympathize with your problem. I have had issues playing some Xbox360 games with friends using Xlink Kai. Latency just won't allow them to play. 

As stated in the article, there are many factors that affect latency. From the sounds of it, bandwidth is not a reason for yours, therefore QoS won't fix the problem either. QoS "reserves" some of your available bandwidth for a specified purpose (VoIP, gaming, etc), but if bandwidth isn't a problem (which I think we've already determined), then QoS will have no impact.

Posted 07/09/2009 at 08:46:26am

Break out the tinfoil hats! 

I don't think Google's approach to the way they run their business is any different than the folks in Redmond. They (M$) want to have as much of their product on your PC and in your home as you are willing to pay for, and in rare cases, offered for free (Windows Defender).

I think the totalitarian approach that Micro$oft has taken has been more well received by the general public because they brought us the all-mighty Windows, but how many antitrust suits have been filed against them around the world? 

Regarding Google's "claim to want every bit of every person on the planets data in a db under their control", that is up to the user and whether they elect to put all of their eggs in the Google basket. Google is merely providing a single-vendor solution for things that most people currently spread across several web-based services.

Before the accusation is thrown out, I am not a Google fanboy by any means. The only two products I use are Chrome (web browser) and Gmail, and I have no intention of using the new OS (barring any major advantages or advancements over Linux or Windows). I just think it's not right to dig on a company that tries to challenge Micro$oft on all fronts on the grounds that there is some data-hording conspiracy.

Posted 06/22/2009 at 03:12:50pm

I have the U3 version of SIW on my USB key and it gives Manufacturer, Model, Serial #, and a host of other motherboard-specific info. GREAT information tool to know every detail about your PC.

Posted 09/20/2008 at 09:38:31am

One thing that is so often overlooked when you are talking about a subscription based service such as WoW is that there is not a one time cost of developing and producing the game; there is also a maintenance cost associated with maintaining all of the servers and the network that supports the 15million accounts. (I would love to see their data centers!)

Being and IT person, I can assure you that it's not an easy task to maintain the kind of uptime that you get with online services, be it the servers, the network, or the ISP connections. There is a lot that goes into maintaining an environment like this, and all the while, people screaming about 30 seconds of downtime when there is a hardware failure. How many PC issues (bluescreen, hard drive crash, blown power supply, etc etc) have each of us had in our PC-gaming lifetimes? The servers that run these games are hardware just the same...and require maintenance...which requires people to do that maintenance, and trust me...they do not work for free.

This doesn't even touch on the fact that, as with any good game, there are regular patches for bug fixes, game improvements, etc. So it's not a "set it and forget it" approach to programming. People have to be paid to do that piece as well.

This all being said, I think to have a subscription based requirement for EVERY game would severely dissuade me from purchasing additional games of that sort. I would tend to gravitate to one or two games that I would play on a regular basis to minimize the impact to my bank account.

Not all games need to be subscription based though.Counter-Strike (a previous fav of mine) wasn't fee based because the aforementioned server environment was user-maintained...anyone could set up a server and host the matches, ergo less or no staff required to keep things up and working. With WoW, DAoC, WWIIOL, etc, the entire game was run off of managed servers...you don't have in-game consistency otherwise. A subscription makes sense in these cases.

With games like AoE, any of the Civilization games, Call of Duty, etc, you can host a LAN game or play single-player. Games such as these should not require a monthly fee PER GAME, unless it were something like a subscription to the hosting server that just acts as a "LAN" or a pointer to the other servers, and that fee should be minimal. 

I guess the point I am trying to make is, keep in mind that there are people who have to be paid to maintain some online services. Be a little more pragmatic about games rhat require a subscription rather than assuming because you spent $40-$50 for an on-line game, that you should get to play it for free, forever.