OT: Wow, AMD is buying ATI for billions....

[Fairlight]

Confusious (John Esak) say:
> 
> AMD is buying ATI (the graphics card people)...

Let AMD have ATI.  The two could not deserve each other more.  AMD's
processors historically have issues.  Originally it was heat but that's
been solved with newer lines.  But they've always had odd quirks that
people have to work around for compatability reasons.

ATI is just out to lunch on the support/business side.  They refuse to
release new Catalyst drivers for Windows 2000, saying that you shouldn't be
gaming on that platform (funny, they released drivers through several years
and addressed gaming issues on it.  Funny, as Window 2000 is a supported
platform for even recent games with the exception of -one- that I found
labelled XP only, which isn't even worth buying from the reviews.  Then
they claim Microsoft is dropping Windows 2000 soon (their word) anyway,
so they have no intention of releasing new drivers for it.  I disporoved
this with a link from Microsoft's own site that says it's supported through
June, 2010, and is NOT being dropped.  We'll see what, if anything, ATI
says to that, since they trumped up half their reason for being lazy idiots
in the first place.

I'll never buy another ATI card.  NVidia just released both 2000 and XP
patches on June 21 for their products.  Next system:  NVidia all the way.
Especially when I'm NOT the kind of person that changes video cards like
socks.

Screw ATI.  Their chips are good.  I love the performance of the
ATI-powered GameCube, for instance, and they power two of the next-gen
consoles (XBox 360 and Nintendo's Wii), and I'd take an ATI if it presented
itself at no cost, obviously.  But I'll never willingly -buy- another of
their products after the attitude they pulled in "support" email last week.
ATI Customer Care is what they call themselves.  ATI Customer Shafting is
what I call it.  Especially when the game studios all say ATI's drivers lag
behind with ancient support.  Three have pointed at this in the last half
year.

Posts will be going out to several gaming communities, including Blizzard,
Bethesda Softworks, and other companies that have released games that
support both XP and 2000.  Oblivion is really demanding and just came
out in January of this year, and supports Win2K.  If the game developers
support the OS and my graphics chipset, the chipset vendor better damned
well pay heed.  If they're dropping 2000 four years before EOL, what makes
anyone believe they'll maintain XP support once Vista's been out for four
or five years but isn't EOL?  Yeah, people -will- hear about this.  I'm
contemplating a www.dontbuyati.com type move, although I likely won't take
it that far.  But it's crossed my mind.

Both companies do things their way, and historically it bites them in the
ass.  The funny thing is that I used to defend ATI.  No more.  They just
pulled an Adapetec maneuver on me.  (For those that don't remember,
Adaptec, in the early linux days around '93-'95) told me that they didn't
support linux.  This changed about 2 years later when Red Hat outted their
attitude in a public posting of Adaptec's letter to them on RH's web site.
They were shamed into it.  They've lost tens of thousands just from my
influence over what hardware is and isn't implemented in systems over which
I have a say.  If I get the final word, no Adaptec gets installed.)  I will
never again recommend ATI, unless they get their head out of their a** and
actually stand behind their product for the remainder of W2K's lifecycle AS
DEFINED BY MICROSOFT.

I've never liked AMD.  Their Athlon 1800+ was shaky, actually, as were
later and faster models, and that wasn't all that many years back.  One
just runs into more troubles with AMD's than Intel chips, mostly because
they do things their own way.  Only one company, an Italian game developer
called PM Studios, seems to prefer them--to the point of developing ONLY
on AMD, testing only on AMD, and telling Intel users they're out of luck
because they never tested with Intel HyperThreading enabled because they
never tested on Intel chips.  And That's just plain irresponsible, IMHO.

ATI's technology is fine.  Their support...forgeddaboutit.  And without
support, the best tech in the world is worth almost nothing.  If I sound
bitter, good, as I surely am.

As for the other topic of disentrenching iPod...good luck.  They're going
to be less successful than they have been with the XBox consoles.  The only
thing that could save it is if they distribute plain, non-DRM mp3's, and
that just won't happen because of the industry they're playing ball with.
Well, actually that's not true.  They could put a dent in iPod if their
battery life is longer, and if their units are more stable (I know multiple
people that go through one every few months, sometimes under warranty
yet). iPods, I gather, are not all that hardy a beast.  But there aren't
that many weaknesses on which to prey.  Short of buying Apple, I don't see
them getting market dominance.  As with online search, they're late to the
dinner party.  Same thing could almost be said about game consoles, except
we've always had fringe consoles.  Magnavox Oddessey, 3D0, Neo-Geo, just
to name a few.  But they were pretty late catching up there, and I still
doubt they'll succeed.  They're enjoying a moment right now, but once PS3
hits the shelves, that's going to be diminished.  Although I've heard
the PS3 just isn't anything to write home about...you really can't tell
from pre-release industry buzz, even from E3.  It's just unreliable.  I'm
thinking the Nintendo Wii will only be bought by diehard fans of Nintendo,
though, and will therefore fail in the eyes of Nintendo's CEO, even if it
matches GameCube numbers.  Depends if the controller is taken as a gimmick
or a revolutionary idea.  I've seen pictures of the controller in action,
and I just can't see playing that way--not for conventional gamers.  Which
is their point, actually--they want to grab -everyone-, not just gamers.  I
still think it's doomed to 3rd place and may finally convince Nintendo to
give up on the console market, forcing them back into handhelds and game
franchises.

But I just can't see MS beating Apple at the media thing.  Apple's been
about media since the first 68k Mac launched.  It's still the choice of
musicians and artists, despite almost identical software being available
on the PC.  If there's something Apple knows how to do right (open
architectures -isn't- one of them), it's media.  Microsoft is not someone
that I feel can beat Apple at its best-played game.

mark->