Posted on 02/19/2007 7:15:23 AM PST by N3WBI3
The monitor thing is messed up. But what you linked to reminds me of a BIG problem in the PC industry. That computer comes with Vista Home Premium, but it isn't even capable of running the OS properly. It has HALF the minimum memory, and 128 MB of that will be eaten up by the integrated graphics, leaving you with 384 MB, not even enough memory to run Vista Home Basic. Plus the graphics card is the absolute bottom-end for Aero support (and it's running on single-channel system memory -- SLOW).
It is simply unethical to sell the above system as-is to a customer who expects to be able to take it home and run Vista Home Premium with all the features.
At least if you buy an Apple you know it will run the OS it ships with.
I ran Vista with 1GB of ram with onboard Video and it works fine for "normal" use I even ripped a bunch of dvd's and did some photo editing and such.. no problems.
I wouldn't suggest installing Mepis 6.5 beta quite yet... it's broken IMHO...
Wait for PCLinuxOS Final should be out "soon"
That's cutting it close on Vista. I gave 1gig a try and it did ok, but it didn't really start 'flying' until I upped it to 2gig. Contrary to what many have said, it's a very solid running OS. The only thing that would deter me from using it as my primary OS would be the DRM crap.
yea, I Upped my memory to 2GB's and it's very good... actually I don't even actually have 2GB because 128MB's is being used by the onboard video... so i have 1920MB's of RAM but it works very good. ;) even though I have onboard GeForce 6150 video(I will be getting a better video card soon, I want to wait for the mid-range DirectX 10 cards to come out) onboard Video is fine for now, I can watch DVD's and do basic 3D Modeling just fine with this card not hurry. ;)
The DRM stuff, ehhh... use AnyDVD... what DRM... IF you don't like Media Player 11 Don't use it use Media Player Classic... If you don't like the other stuff.... its "software" fix it the way you want.. sheesh...
Oh, also I had my Swap file on the first partition of a second hard drive... that helps a little bit. ;)
I was given the impression that DRM was systemic. Is it only associated with Windows Media Player?
I hate it when they do that. We got in 100 PCs at work and every single one of them had their 128MB video memory pull from system memory. I tried to get my boss to send every dammed one of them back, but he refused. For some reason they never informed us of that "feature" when we were evaluating that purchase. I'm sure in the specs they had some murky jargon to identify it. What really made me mad was the eval PC they sent to us didn't do that. They claimed that their design changed during our evaluation, and we got the latest model release.
You do need "antermarket" tools to break the "encription" on the disks as always slysoft.com's AnyDVD works great and their CloneDVD2 and CloneDVDMoble work like a charm.. give them a shot they all have free trials, the programs work totally for like 20 days or something like that.... (thats should be long enough for you to back up you entire DVD collection) ;)
those PC's you have probably do indeed have a PCI'e slot so you could add in a good aftermarket video card. ;)
Yes they have a couple of slots. It was just interesting the demo computer didn't allocate system memory to video, and when the 99 other PCs arrived they did just that.
Something cheap like this... look at the customer reviews... one guys says he gets a 5.4-5.9 in Vista 3D with it..
Not to shabby, for reference my OnBoard Geforce 6150 gets an even 3.0 ;)
And remember not only is the dedicated video card faster for 3d graphics, but also gives you back your system memory... ;)
they have Tons of cards over there at newegg.com you just really have to get what you need for the price you want to spend... I just grabbed one..
Wow! Now that's pretty nice! A great price too, gotta love newegg!! We'd all be lost without it lol
but, newegg seems to be the standard and I like the layout of their site, easy to navigate and well laid out... oh and good prices and service. ;)
Oh yea, that card has 512MB of ram onboard and it has a $25 mail-in-rebate.. those darn rebates... sheesh
I just built a system with all parts from newegg. Very good prices and fast service.
I love the case I got for it, the pic doesn't do it justice!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811144151
Forget the 512, it still puts you below the minimum with 128 MB being shared. But that's not the point. In the PC world it is easy for the unknowing to buy a computer that won't even properly run the OS. You go buy that shiny new computer, get it home, and it won't even run the OS as advertised. That is pathetic.
Even the bottom-end Mac can run OS X properly (although it can't run Vista Premium). Some high-end software can't use certain high-end hardware acceleration features with the lower Macs, but the user will only notice a speed difference, not a functional one.
The horrible DRM restrictions don't kick in unless you're playing the next-gen DRM'd media, like HD-DVD. When you do that, you're screwed -- you've read that paper, right? Your $$$$ professional workstation Quadro card isn't DRM-aware, so you have to dump it for a cheap DRM-aware card if you want to watch HD-DVD? The high-quality digital audio out to your $$$$ stereo system got disabled by the DRM, and you're told to use the analog ports? WTF? Microsoft wrote Vista for Microsoft and the studios/labels, not the users.
I don't own any HD disks so... HDCP(High-Definitiion Copy Protection) thats what it stands for.... If you want to View it you need to have it... If you want to Crack it... be my guest.
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