Turn Your New Opteron Into A One-Game Console 350
An anonymous reader writes "A new 64-bit Linux CD can instantly turn an AMD Opteron-equipped PC into the ultimate gaming console, according to Super Computer Inc. (SCI). The company has created a distribution of the popular America's Army multi-player strategy game on a bootable Linux CD, that it says was developed in partnership with AMD, nVidia, and the US Army."
A 64-bit gaming console? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hang on....Gentoo? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why? (Score:1, Insightful)
Proof that Linux is becoming The One OS (Score:4, Insightful)
I see the future and it looks like this: a bootable Linux CD with my choice of applications, and a USB dongle with my
It is a revolutionary way of using PCs. And only possible (AFAICS) with Linux and the kind of support provided by Knoppix et al.
I predict 12 months before bootable Linux CDs become a completely standard model for games and application distribution, and 24 months before Microsoft attempt an imitation.
Just love it...
Means nothing if ... (Score:2, Insightful)
All the comments so far... (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that I will say this sounds like a cool idea and I will definitely give it a shot.
~Dan
http://www.pbase.com/efatapo [pbase.com]
is anyone else bothered (Score:0, Insightful)
To be realistic... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, all that's needed is a hotkey to eject the CD and kill the machine in case Someone approaches...
Re:Proof that Linux is becoming The One OS (Score:2, Insightful)
If this is a threat to MS, watch them exert pressure on the pc manufacturers to change the default boot device (and maybe even put in a pw) for home users !
Re:Single Game Console? Try Multi-Game,,, (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, granted... this fine for the game makers to include this as an option. That way if you can't get the game running any other way, you can always just boot into it. However, please don't start making this the only way to get into the games.
Please let those days die.
Davak
Re:The 65 bit Port - The difference?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Remember, just about the only way Atari's Jaguar made any sales at all was pretending to be 64 bit. (It does handle some 64 bit data, but whether that really makes it 64 bit is a debate which could rage eternally.) Nintendo 64? Ooh, it's 64 bit! It's a baby SGI!
Re:is anyone else bothered (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This would be great. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Turn your $2000 PC into a $150 Toy! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:is anyone else bothered (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, maybe the game will teach some kids who would not get along well to avoid joining the military, and get others who would enjoy it and would fit well to join. That can only save us money and increase efficiency. So in the end, it may be a win, even from a purely financial standpoint.
As for training kids to kill, I think we've seen that the ability to blow people up with grenade launchers in games does not translate directly into being able to plug a bunch of kids with your dad's hunting rifle.
You're smoking crack and it's not even good crack. (Score:5, Insightful)
I predict the entire computer gaming and applications industry will not follow your lead. Just a hunch, but it seems slightly beyond farfetched to think that anyone who sells software for money would consider a bootable Linux CD the ideal method of application distribution. It's especially farfetched to think they'd drop everything they're doing and begin selling their products this way.
- A.P.
You're not looking at it right... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a good thing, just not as good as it could be.
As it stands, it may bring a few players over that would have otherwise stayed away from a Linux version or port of their products.
Re:All the comments so far... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, I stripped the OS down quite a bit when I initially set it up, to the point where I sometimes have to enable rather mundane functions to do other things, but overall the game is not the only thing running that matters to me, as the player of the game.
The place I could really see something like this going over pretty well, though, would be a LAN party, where you could have a few of these around for people that don't have the game, so they don't have to mess with installation and everything else. Of course, that would limit it pretty much to games that you don't have to pay a license for each copy on, such as America's Army.
Re:Well gee (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:is anyone else bothered (Score:3, Insightful)
Grow up. I don't want to pay for Social Security because GenX won't be getting anything lavish as that, but I still have to pay for it. I don't want to pay for murderers on death row for 20 years, but I have to pay for it. I don't want to pay for lazy people with fake disabilities robbing our safety net, but I pay for it. Maybe you should write Osama or some of the other people we pay our taxes to the military to protect us from for some generous health care options. I'm sure he'd truly respect your pacifist beliefs just as much as he professes his loathing of socialists and other so-called infidels. Or say Mr. Hussein who some people around the world claim we illegally removed from power. I'm sure he'd thank you by introducing you to one of his industrial sized plastic shredders as a token of appreciation.
As for America's Army, its a great way to train basics to people interested in the Army experience in the leisure of their own home. When our country was founded (and before that, with the colonies and the homeland aka the United Kingdom), every able bodied man and teen were expected to be trained to protect their homes via the militia experience. Would you prefer the States offer militia training? Switzerland does. Would that make you shut up? How about compulsory military service when you turn 18, like how Greece, Russia, and Israel all require? And what about the fact that America's Army is rated M for Mature, meaning it is meant for 17 year olds and up, which is the very age someone can be recruited into the U.S. Military? Compare that with television commercials for the military that any child can watch on television, monitored or unmonitored? Doesn't that bother you more?
Video games have a long history of being dual-use technology. Atari's "Battlezone" (the first arcade tank simulator) impressed the U.S. Army so much they asked Atari to make some modified versions of it for training purposes back in 1980. The game was designed to be fun; it was not meant to be a pro-military tool. Atari did jump at the contract, and they did make one of the creators of the game modify it for the Army's needs before he quit. But the history of man being inhuman to his fellow man long predates the arrival of movies, television, and videogames. U.S. soldiers shooting children on the Trail of Tears happened long before "Pong" hit the scene in 1972.
Columbine was the fermentation of years of bullying two intelligent misfits who finally cracked and unleashed their own personal demons upon their tormenters and others who failed to prevent their debasement amongst their peers. It is not related to them bowling or how they loved to play *Doom* or listen to Marilyn Manson. Do you want to ban Pac-Man because it might promote cannibalism?
Ergo, your argument is null and void.
Re:Single Game Console? Try Multi-Game,,, (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This concept is not new (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:All the comments so far... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is that when anybody ever says "end of story", it never is the end of story? I should sic Lionel Hutz on your ass.
You'll see some FPS improvement, maybe. But you'll also see less bearable issues. How do you patch it? How do you install a new driver that makes things go faster or more stable? How do you justify the time lost rebooting the machine by getting another 2 fps? How do you go about using other programs such as Roger Wilco to talkk to your team mates? Etc.
Sorry, I don't share the 'cool factor' here because PC based architecture is too varied from machine to machine. If they were all the same generic build, then yeah I'd be on your side here. But no, too many different machines, too much can go wrong. That's why us gamers like having a common OS with an API like OpenGL or DirectX. If your hardware works with those two APIs, then the game should (theoretically) work, no need to tell the game what kind of sound card you have.
So no, not end of story. Piece of advice, when something seems so gosh darn simple to you, it's not because everybody in the world is a fucking moron, it's because you're missing information that they have.