I also love the wine support. Please test on Win8/Win7, but enjoy XP. I recently installed Windows 7 for a Source engine game that feels "off" in OS X. Yet Wine/LiveForSpeed feels great, and I ended up being terrible at that compeitive Valve Source engine game when switched back to windows.
Very glad the new patch worked great, required some directx9 install unlike prior patch though.
Most def. I have used LiveForSpeed since rather young and it just feels right. Forza is only one I feel had similar feel (Forza one/maybe Forza two alittle)
I'm still thinking about a scientific and practical way of proving this, but I personally feel that compared to similar cars in RL LFS's response isn't right neither.
For what it's worth, I work for a small software company, and share an office with a different IT company that supplies computers for small businesses.
The software I have to maintain is very old, and it's developed on Windows XP.
In order to test it on the (then) upcoming Windows 7 64 bit, I was bought a 64 bit Windows 7 machine. It was an utter ball ache to get the development environment setup again, due to the 16 bit support being dropped, and some of the controls I needed, despite being 32 bit, came with 16 bit installers.
I managed to get it working, but reverted back to my XP machine for primary development.
My philosophy is that it's a work machine, not my own personal one, and so I just use it for development. I ditched IE, and kept my alternative browser up to date. I ran no anti-virus, as I was sick of how much it slowed my already slow PC down. Unlike Scawen, I kept automatic updates switched on.
Since 2003 to late last year, the only thing to affect my PC was MSBlast. Our office at the time had a subscription to Sophos anti-virus, and I had fixed my own computer hours before Sophos had any updates own to automate the fix.
Every now and again, I'll download a few free virus scanners, along with Windows native one, and they find nothing.
With my job I have to use Wireshark quite a bit. Nothing strange there either.
Yet, as I said, I share an office with an IT support firm, that think I'm crazy, but it's their guys, on the latest version of Windows, with AVG CloudCare and all the bells and whistles that seem to keep being infected with malware. Not me.
I don't need a IT tech support guy, who's solution to everything is to run CC Cleaner, else Format and Reinstall, to tell me how 'dangerous' my situation is. I've seen them go red in the face, insisting I'd have loads of viruses if I installed anti-virus. They've got really heated and quite aggressive over it. So I'm not convinced by some very passionate posters in this thread either. I have my own proof. It was a dead HDD after the Christmas shut down that got me away from XP in the end.
I'm cautious in how I used my work computer, and never got infected with anything.
The dangerous ones are those that think that they're near invulnerable BECAUSE they have the latest operating system, and a paid anti-virus subscription. In my experience of the guys in my own office, and their customers, and my own customers; is that it's these people that are far more likely to idiotically install their own viruses.
A JavaScript pop up on a webpage they're trying to download an MP3 from tells them a virus has been detected, and to follow its instructions to remove it. They assume it's part of their AV suite, and install themselves a virus.
Anti-virus should be a last resort safety net. If it's got so far as to pick something up, you should be blushing. Learn to compute.
Scawen's reasons for sticking with XP are absolutely sound. He's not saying you should, and he's not saying LFS needs it. It's the best development environment for LFS, end of.
Weirdly, I'm the only one in the office not whinging about Windows 8 either. It seems just as fluid to me as does 7, as I'm primarily a keyboard guy, rather than a mouse guy. So I'm not sure whether I'm stuck in the past, or a Microsoft fanboy any more.
In my experience, most people working with computers, developers or not, are clueless about a lot of things. If you know what you're doing, and aren't an idiot, XP is just as secure as the latest OS, with the latest AV, used by an average mouse preferring Joe.
Anyway, I found this thread from Google when trying to find an objective comparison between the various racing sims out there. Are there any such threads. Ones that stick to objective facts, rather than the 'feelies'?
7 still supports 16 bit, 8 doesn't. PM if you need the software/conversation to achieve this.
Your tech support seems 'odd'
Run 7 Prof, and do your dev work on Windows Virtual PC, XP. This is supported without needing an XP license.
Virus etc, any freeware AV, AVG/Avast/Win Defender will work if you watch where you go. Malwarebytes to remove spyware is the option.
CCleaner ? this is not an AV, it cleans up your PC and gently tidies the registry. No IT person should think it's 'the' solution.
Racing Sim's; LFS, Asseto Corsa, (Rallying) RSRBR, Console games.........
Plus a few others, see other threads here.
It's not our tech support. It's a different company we share office space with.
I got a Windows 7 64 bit machine working by manually registering the controls I needed. My current development environment for the same ancient software, is Windows 7 64 bit, without any Virtual PC.
I'm not looking for any anti-virus software. I don't need it.
I was generalising with the IT support company. Their solution is to run a load of different tools, written by others, stare at progress bars, and if the virus/issue doesn't go away, format and reinstall. Never any investigation or manual work. They also seem to think Windows just slows down with age, and needs reinstalling to make it fast again. Load of bollocks. Keep an eye on what processes are running.
I was hoping for an objective comparison. I remember a very long time ago, there was a table indicating the various features of loads of sims, like tyre wear, flat spots, how finely the tyres are 'zoned' for temperature etc.
It was from that I initially chose LFS.
I want to get back in to sim-racing again, and I was wondering if there was a modern equivalent of that kind of table?
It's hard to get a straight answer on general gaming forums as they all seem to think Project CARS is realistic because of rain effects and sense of speed.
As far as simulation goes, as an example, I rate GT6 with everything turned off, as being better than Project CARS, which felt floaty and primitive. But say you think GT6 is a better sim than Project CARS in a general games forum and you get nowhere.
Exactly this! Thank you. Would be nice to fill in the gaps.
EDIT:
I've been away from sim racing for a long time, and in trying to get up-to-date with everything, and seeing a lot of arguing and venom between discussing iRacing vs Project CARS, or Assetto Corsa vs rFactor 2 etc, I've got to say, away from this particular site, in blogs, or comments on articles, or videos comparing or discussing the above games, there's a lot of love and fond memories for LFS.
Maybe it's because it's not seen as within the same generation any more though.
It will be interesting to see how much traffic and downloads spike for LFS if any major changes are announced or released.
Today an article about the tyremodel used on Project CARS has been released. I am wondering how people, with any knowledge on this subject, feel about their approach and it would be awesome if Scawen could comment on their tyremodel compared to what he is working on.
From that I gather it's real-time computational physics in conjunction with simplified tire geometry model, similar to LFS I presume. If that is true then those change logs like "Improved tire handling of XYZ car" without detailed explanation of which tire parameters were changed will be impossible. And it would show a step in the right direction in the virtual sim world.
In contrast to that a very bad way of doing it is having per-computed values in a table somewhere and having formulas to pull those values and output them in sim environment as necessary. Indicated by aforementioned change logs. Another strong indication of that is when simulated object is behaving unpredictably and suddenly.
The reason I think it's the proper way is because of how simple the tire model looks. It's even simpler in geometry than of that in LFS, but which allows more physics based calculations on that simpler model. If for example the model was high geometry the running physics would result in a screenshoot generator. The CPU limitations still forcing a subtle balance there it seems.
I guess they have their own virtual tire rig on which they base accuracy of the in-game low geometry model.
But 'Beyond the Apex' magazine that came with special editions of GT6 sounds even better in it's summary of vehicle dynamics.
The Formula 1 games had real Formula 1 drivers saying it was great.
EDIT: I meant to sound more skeptical than negative.
If they successfully dynamically model all of these things in time for release, it will be great. No doubt about it. The latest videos I have seen looked a bit disconnected like SHIFT was. Which didn't work with my G25. But I have no idea what build they were from. It was definitely and graphics first approach though. Nobody can deny that.
But hey, Scawen came from a big studio before going his own way, and I still think it's the best written sim out there.
This means that it's not real world. It's impossible to give a totally realistice sim that recreates the real world. LFS is really good, so is AC and a couple of other sims.
I'm glad you've clearly sorted your dev problems and can do your oldy worldy 16 bit dev with 7. I've had to deal with 16 bit software that's still 'vital' and it works with 7, but 8 requires virtualising 7, XP, 3.11 for workgroups, etc........
Don't have access to PCARS atm, but if comments on this forum is to be believed, it looks like we have another example of "we don't have enough good data to feed our own model".
In my case it wasn't so bad. It was just the installers to deploy and licence some 32 bit controls that were 16 bit.
As for the different operating systems, not sure I really agree.
First of all I think of it as Mac, Windows and Linux. I have machines with all three, and to me they're all just PC's.
My Mac has been rock solid, scuffed and scratched from a lot of travelling, but still not a crack or creak. It has been used for writing software that helps run a business. It is used by me personally for video and photo editing, as it is the best notebook I have for a colour correct screen. It is also used for general surfing and office work. It has never missed a beat. I'm not sure what 'rough play' or 'useless' is supposed to mean.
I'm also a massive fan of ThinkPads, but despite their reputation, they haven't worn as well as my Mac. Perhaps the quality has dropped since Lenovo took over. When working abroad for a year with one, and trying to debug some native code, it all went off, and then failed to boot. It was a corrupt registry, and this is where Linux came in. I had to use a different machine to download an Ubuntu install, and it was a massive learning curve, but I managed to use Ubuntu on the dead ThinkPad to edit and fix the registry.
I liked Ubuntu, but at the time, to install a pretty common sound chipset, it was a case of 'enter these 15 lines of terminal commands in sequence'.
Even though this could have been made into a package, it's like the community prides itself on the learning curve, and want it to remain hard earned. I started to get the hang of it, and imagined how good it could be for all kinds of user, if they had more people working on it, and there wasn't such a 'terminal cult' thing going on.
But then Ubuntu just seemed like a paper thin OS X, with a different kind of dock, moved to the left of the screen. And in learning terminal, it made me realise how powerful OS X can be for a terminal junky, and how easy it for someone like my dad, who would otherwise be installing smiley face packs and PC SpeedUp Pro FREE.
If it wasn't for games, and my job, I'd be quite happy to drop Windows. If Steam OS ever works, and becomes the defacto gaming OS, I won't have any need for it at home. OS X sucks because it's tied to expensive hardware. If you don't know what you're doing, it just seems to work. If you do know what you're doing, you have a nix terminal, and a pretty decent SDK.
And as an aside, the amount of swearing that goes on by the support company we share an office with, whenever a Mac comes in shows there's a lot of hate. But they just simply don't know what they're doing, and they don't like that they suddenly become clueless in how to install a printer.
I once heard a guy telling a customer they should just 'get a PC' because iMail seemed incapable of sending large attachments through Exchange, when the Windows clients could.
He then later found out that 'Apple being Apple, can't do anything the normal way, and instead use the Exchange web-page to send email, and that has a separate limit on it'.
He didn't seem to realise that Microsoft themselves recommend that full featured mail clients should use the new Exchange Web SERVICE, not web-page, and not their propriety format.
But then iMail was still shit, because he set the limit to 10MB, and an 8MB attachment still wouldn't go across, so he had to bump it up.
He didn't understand that email encodes attachments using base64 encoding, which increases file size. Maybe the Exchange front end for the Web Services doesn't take this into account, when the front end for the native connection does. I'm not sure. Either way, all his in office cursing, and pretty much inferring to the the customer on the phone that he was fooling for buying a Mac for work, were down to his own ignorance and frustration and not know what he was doing.
Been here for over 10 years now and it's COMMON. A new apprentice from college started a few months ago, and has the exact same attitude. Any kind of news story on Apple, and the office just won't shut up. There may be millions of clueless Apple cultists, but in my experience, they are dwarfed by people that get really emotional and heated in the opposite direction. Even to the point of pretty much shaming paying customers after a bit of support.
Yet they all seem to hold Linux in some godly position, despite being even more ignorant of it. Maybe it's because any customer hardcore enough to run Linux, wouldn't need to call them for help.
As for me, I only got a Mac as I managed to get it at a better price than a similarly spec'd Windows machine while in Japan in 2011, when I only originally wanted something for video/photo editing. The first couple of weeks were a bit of a frustration. Once it clicked, it made me notice all the clunky aspects of Windows I'd took for granted before, that were now annoying me. Just as, at the time, I was learning Japanese, and it made me realise how verb conjugation and changing of tense in English was a ball ache compared to it. English was just easier because I grew up with it, and it was native. And it was the same for Windows.
I'm not sure I'd buy another Mac unless I could get it at a similarly good price, as they are expensive, no doubt about it. But it has been excellent, and still is excellent and just as fast as the day I turned it on. Once I was forced to learn some Linux to fix a Windows machine, and learned my way around terminal and basic nix commands, it made me realise that OS X was actually an extremely powerful OS in its own right.
I'm personally hoping Steam OS takes over for gaming, and then ends up becoming a fully featured OS.
It's ironic that you mention the printer, considering at my office, I slowly started teh transition to Macs for everyone. Printer installs were always the amusing thing as it was like "Click +, find it on network, hit install, print" in OS X.
In Windows, it was always 10 minutes searching down drivers on the website, installing them, rebooting, then hoping that the printer still gets found on the network from Windows search thing (which it wouldn't, which entailed entering the IP address.. until the IP changed because someone else ****ed with the router).
When it became so easy that my non-IT savvy boss could install printers for everyone and even do basic troubleshooting which meant I could spend more time developing.. I don't know why people would use Windows for anything other than playing games. Linux is still not ready.. it's closer, but when AAA titles still launch as Windows only, Linux isn't an option yet for games.
SteamOS won't ever mature past being a slim Debian that runs Steam. Valve has no intent on actually evolving a desktop OS. The fact that they even bundle a runtime inside of Steam, separate from the system's library set, which games are supposed to target and use is further evidence of this.
Interesting. My experience of owning a MacBook is that everything is fine until there is a problem, then you are shit out of luck. Apple will never acknowledge an issue unless it affects all of the users of a newly released device and is picked up by national news channels. If you try to get help on a forum, all you get are apple evangelists who refuse to believe that an apple product could have a fault - unless Apple admit the fault, which rarely happens, see above.
The MacBook I had was faulty in three ways.
1. There was a design fault that caused cracks to slowly appear in the casing if you carried it around closed. I have seen many of the same model of MacBook, ALL of them have this problem. NONE of the mac lover owners had noticed it! No information or apologies on Apple websites.
2. There is a hardware/driver problem with audio that causes latency to rise slowly over time until the drivers buffer is reset. This is a significant problem for me as I was trying to use the machine for music making. I discovered that a few others had a similar problem (most folks wouldn't notice because they are not using their macs for creative purposes). Apple have never responded to this issue. Forum response ranged from 'there is no problem' to, 'it's your fault for not buying a MacBook pro'. Not a single acknowledgement that there is a problem. No attempt at helping to find a solution.
3. There is a fault with the motherboard/processor design that causes the machine to make high pitched noises/humming sounds. This problem was acknowledged by apple because it caused so many complaints, but they denied that it was a 'fault' and refused to do anything about it.
My experience with windows is quite different. Any time I have a problem - which is rare these days - Microsoft will have multiple possible work-arounds posted on their website, and if I try user forums, I will get helpful responses rather than evangelistic denial.
Part of the reason Linux is put on a pedestal is because there is no huge corporation making unrealistic claims, denying faults and forcing users to upgrade their hardware with an extremely aggressive and unethical program of forced obsolescence.
If I were running an IT support business, I would hate Apple purely because of the rate at which they force their users to upgrade. This would make my business less profitable because I would have to spend so much money re-training my staff. I would also hate being given computers to fix that had real problems that were flatly denied by the manufacturer and the online user community.
So, from reading the above, my post actually sums things up............
And yes, Apple is a cute puppy that can't deal with hardcore play.
Yes, Apple sucks, why do I need to keep logining in on the forum using an iPad? And, yes, it's an Apple issue that Victor doesn't support. But it's still a pain that I shouldn't need to deal with, and one that doesn't happen with a PC, or Linux.
Roll on open gl, which will give longer term support than dx9 (old school, living in the past, get with it, the future is DX12 because....., and occ rift is now DX 10plus......)
You think this is unique to Apple? I've had exactly the same experience elsewhere. Recently with the PS4, which due to the Xbox One rivalry, made it very hard to get any advice from any 'Sony' forums. Sony evangelists?
Or how about the very expensive HTC TyTN II which was unfit for purpose, but on the HTC forums had all kinds of people defending it, and the company, some even suggesting I just go away and get an iPhone... HTC evangelists?
There was even a class action lawsuit against them for that particular phone.
I guess I'm fortunate, in that my 2011 unibody hasn't given me any problems at all. It's unlucky for you, but again I don't think it's unique to Apple. As I said before, I'm a huge fan of ThinkPads. Go on an unofficial ThinkPad fan forum and see for yourself which models are lemons and unfit for purpose, yet are still sold, and the problems not acknowledged.
My first T series was bullet proof. My second one was a nightmare. My X300 was brilliant until the bezel around the screen started cracking. My current ThinkPad Yoga is brilliant.
Because it's software. When I messed up my compiler tools in OS X, because I couldn't wait for the next version of Xcode and wanted C++11, I found plenty of help. With hardware, what can you do?
Do you consider ASUS a good company? Try getting support for their unfit for purposes, overheating and bugger N55U router on their official forums. Try even getting any kind of response. I couldn't even get a refund. It's now nothing but an expensive wireless access point and switch.
To put it the way you did, good look buying that particular router from ASUS, as you'll be shit out of luck.
Force their users to upgrade? What, by arbitrarily stopping DirectX 10 from running on Windows XP? By arbitrarily forcing DirectX 9 developers away from Vista and 7? By arbitrarily tying in versions of office to Windows, and version of SQL Server to Windows Server? I won't even get into Microsoft SDK, which seems to have a new personality every year. They'll push one API and technology, make a huge fanfare, and then drop support for it two years later in favour of the next best thing. Which requires upgrading or subscribing to MSDN. It's absolutely laughable you're using Apple as an example of forcing users to upgrade. My 2011 i7 is working fine. I can still use it to developer applications for both the latest version of OS X, and iOS. I cannot say the same for the ThinkPad I bought around the same time.
And retraining staff? I've had my MacBook since 2011, and OS X in its basic operation hasn't changed at all. Do you have any idea of the retraining that DID go on in this office with the introduction of Windows 8 and Server 2012 (and it's R2 atempt)? Which by the way, will be obsolete soon, because Windows 10 will have a Start Menu...
Have you seen how much Office has changed? And to go back to the point above, how you cannot run the older version on the newer operating systems, or even buy them?
Yet the software we develop, with all its ancient controls and runtimes works just fine, from Windows 95, through to 8 64-bit.
And Metro wasn't just a UI, it's part of an entirely new kernel. One that I think they're going to shift towards, retiring Windows NT. At which point you'll be forced to upgrade.
That kernel seems to have far more in common with Apple's way of doing things than anything Microsoft has ever done. Sandboxed applications, 'Store Apps'
Again, there's a lot of emotion surrounding this company, and not a lot of reasonable argument.
Yes, because Internet Explorer by Microsoft has always rigorously adhered to W3 standards, and never tried to make their own proprietary code part of an international standard. It's never had any kind of bug that the other third-party browsers can't cope with, and requires no special scripting for compatibility.
If only alternative browsers, such as Chrome, were available for iOS, just like they are available for PC Windows.
Clueless and emotional rhetoric. The same nonsense you get from Apple evangelicals. Making my original point.
Good point. Microsoft have a much harder job, their product must work on a very wide range of hardware. Apple on the other hand build the software and the hardware it runs on. So not only do they have a much easier task in terms of developing and maintaining stability, when things do go wrong, they don't have to play corporate twister with some other multi-national. They can fix everything in house. So they really don't have any excuses.
Not particularly, but their products are not marketed with premium status and price point, so I wouldn't expect the same standards of them.
Most of Apples products are copied from other peoples ideas. They just take the ideas to new heights. Similarly, forced obsolescence is not new, but Apple have taken it further than other companies believed users would accept. Now they are all jumping on the gravy train - Microsoft included. Thanks Apple.
No, that's just with Safari in standard mode. I'm using Chrome so it's not a problem. Just ripping on Apple's default browser.
Mind you, updating to 8.1 was drama filled, after the 'censored' that was 8, then 8.01 I hadn't bothered with 8.02. But I thought I'd better update as I have clients waiting to use the latest and greatest and I've told them to wait till something that works is released. A large number are older and expecting them to have backed up prior to updating is optimistic.
Wasn't impressed and thought for a while it may have bricked itself.......
