Talutha wrote on Sep 16, 2020, 13:37:
Because Nvidia is ahead in other ways as well. They're now on their second generation of ray tracing hardware where AMD will be on their first and Nvidia is leading the world in machine learning/AI technologies. This isn't an Intel situation where they sat around at the top and did nothing, the video card business is a byproduct of what Nvidia is cooking up these days. Just DLSS alone is an incredible technology that will boost FPS way higher than we've seen before, and AAA games are starting to take advantage of it with Cyberpunk, Fortnite and the Crysis remaster. I'm not saying AMD wont have an answer, they very well could. I have no idea what they've been cooking up. But with how advanced Nvidia is overall, it would be hard for me to imagine they'll have anything that can compare.

Agreed, DLSS 2.0 is really shaping up well. Nvidia in general is so far ahead on ML and AI. Unlike Intel they've been aggressive with R&D. I've been screwing around lately with the AI upscaling in the new Nvidia Shield and it produces outstanding results on older content.

Acleacius wrote on Sep 16, 2020, 12:09:
Exploit, lmao it doesn't even say which OS. It's such a disaster, we are probably meant to just assume it's win 10, again?

It's an Active Directory exploit, it has multiple platform implications though they tested on Windows 10.

Microsoft's CVE stats have been getting progressively worse every year and their excuses are getting old. To me there is no reason to run their software in any setting other than gaming or casual users who live and die by software that refuses to run on other platforms. At work we use FreeBSD and OpenBSD, I use Arch Linux for everything at home other than gaming. I hope more shops follow suit because its increasingly difficult to recommend Microsoft software in enterprise settings when their testing and security is so awful. They were doing well for awhile and then in 2015 fired most of their internal testing, its all been downhill from there.

We can quibble about it all day but I don't know many people who would feel comfortable flying in a plane with no pilot, no matter the naming of the tech. Perhaps just because I've been playing Flight Simulators all my life I would never confuse the name with truly autonomous flight. Regardless we agree that Autopilot is poorly named. Unfortunately its been determined to be acceptable in most countries so Tesla is sticking with the name.

PhysicalEd wrote on Sep 16, 2020, 13:27:
That Tesla allows operation at all without someone in the drivers seat reveals a serious design flaw. Other manufacturers make sure someone is behind the wheel at all times. I mean, when you have to point to GM as an example of a good implementation of anything you know you have a problem!

They do have a protection for this, if you look on the left at the gauge cluster at the beginning of the video you can see the warning flashing, slowly at first and then faster later on in the video. There's a reason they posted a short Tiktok video. Tesla implements both a seat occupancy sensor and a torque sensor on the wheel. It would be extremely unsafe if they instantly disabled the assisted driving mode entirely the second a wheel or torque sensor didn't report a correct response, it could result in rear end collisions and so on. What they do instead is if you don't respond to the warnings the car eventually pulls itself over to the shoulder, disables any assisted driving mode and turns on your hazards. The only other thing Tesla can do to prevent this sort of stupidity is eye monitoring which is what I think they should implement using the internal camera. I believe this is what Subaru and GM do. I suspect this is coming because they recently enabled the camera in a software update. Predictably a bunch of people are crying foul about privacy but IMO safety should trump privacy in this instance. But even if they did it overnight, someone will find a way to beat the eye monitoring tech with a device (like ingenext with their "upgrade" modules), by emulating the return function in software or even physically disabling it entirely. At some point it has to be the driver's responsibility to maintain control of the vehicle.

As a society we're nowhere near ready for autonomous vehicles. We need full vehicle to vehicle networking and awareness before we could ever attain that IMO and that requires a level of cooperation that could only be implemented by government regulation. Elon makes grandiose claims but I've used Autosteer quite a bit and I don't believe the cars currently have the hardware to make good on them. But they can probably reach a comfortable Level 4 at some point. Autopilot is not really the thing you see in this video anyway. "Autopilot" is just adaptive cruise control, slightly more capable than competitors due to the extensive use of cameras and radar. Autosteer is the extended function that actually does lane keeping and turns. You can't even enter Autosteer without specifically enabling it in the car settings, you're presented with a blunt warning about its capabilities and need to accept an agreement prior to doing so. You also get a warning each time you enable it. Full Self Driving is their actual destination to destination assisted vehicle tech that's in development.

I also agree with Redeye9 that the naming of Autopilot is confusing, though to be fair to Tesla it's a common moniker in the aviation industry and few people would ever confuse it with truly human-free flight. I don't agree that Tesla is responsible for deaths of drivers who have explicitly ignored multiple verbose warnings and so far the law bears out.

Simon Says wrote on Sep 16, 2020, 11:52:
Very far from Nvidia's outlandish claims... Who would've thought?

Perf 2x? ( Hardware Unboxed data )
~30% avg on 2080ti @ 4k
~70% avg on 2080 @ 4k

What claims are those exactly? Their main marketing thrust was to point out what a leap it was over the 1080/1080ti...which it is. It's still a significant generational improvement on even the 2080ti at 4k. It delivers 4k/60fps minimums at much better price point than the previous generation and has excellent frame timing too. These are very significant improvements that AMD is going to struggle to meet, let alone best.

The 4k and 1440p performance is outstanding, finally a worthy upgrade to my 1080ti.

jdreyer wrote on Sep 16, 2020, 05:26:

saltedicecream wrote on Sep 15, 2020, 23:39:

HorrorScope wrote on Sep 15, 2020, 17:48:
Is there anyone else with a product like this to compete against? I can continue to use my Jim Bodong Facebook account,

I only recommend this if you don't actually purchase any software on the Facebook store. FB has been deactivating accounts that do not appear to be linked to real identifies for many years and every year they further refine the detection of such accounts. What they do is deactivate the account and then require that you upload a picture of your driver's license. If it's not valid and/or it doesn't match the account information, then your account is permanently deactivated. You will then lose access to your purchases (FB recently stated explicitly that this will happen if your account is disabled). It's not just something that happens to people with blatantly suspicious accounts--e.g. I recently helped several boomers with completely valid accounts re-enable their deactivated accounts

If that's the case, then why are there so many Russians on FB planting disinformation and sowing discord?

Fake accounts like that can be created using automated tools developed by state actors. They don't care if their accounts are caught, they make new ones. Why are there so many? It's effective at sowing dissent and disrupting our political processes. There is no penalty or disincentive for them. Whereas you or I making a fake account to play VR games would lose access to those purchases.

Alpaca San wrote on Sep 14, 2020, 15:38:
I don't understand the hate for required Facebook signon. Back in the day of silly Facebook games giving time/upgrades/rewards for referring friends... I had 10+ fake facebook accounts... and I would swap 10 friend requests with dozens of others doing the same thing. Then play the games on one of the fake facebook accounts signed into Explorer, and you don't even have any cookies associated with it in your real browser.

Why not just make a facebook account with a picture of a random stranger for a profile pic, and a random real sounding name... link it to your Oculus and pretend it is just any other sign in? Even if you really use Facebook (which I'm guessing people having a problem with this don't) you could use an alternate Facebook for this.

Facebook actively hunts fake accounts these days, under the guise of trying to get rid of bots. You need a verified phone number and a raft of other personal info. They've even requested government photo ID from people at times. If they don't like what you give them then your lose your account and your Oculus purchases with it. That's without getting into providing indirect support for the frankly detestable company itself.

Steam collects basically nothing of significant value from you and anonymizes the little data it does collect. Steam even asks your permission for an optional hardware survey. Facebook is the most pervasive threat to online privacy in existence. They aren't even in the same universe and the comparison is laughable.

Bungie has twice rebelled against parent companies and exclusive contracts already, they must be hurting with Destiny 2 to even consider this.

Looks fantastic and the specs are great but I'm not going to start using Facebook just for this device. Selling all of my Rift gear now and getting an Index instead.

Gotta be willing to meet people in the middle, especially when they're trying to do the right thing.

The Half Elf wrote on Sep 10, 2020, 14:10:
Not a huge fan of Microsoft, but Microsoft is FINALLY getting their shit together for PC Gamers. It started with the ya buy it and ya get it on Xbox and PC, they fixed some of the store problems (like downloading) and then moved it all out of the store over to it's own app that works pretty well, and is getting some decent 3rd party titles in it.

They've definitely started improving but I have to quibble about the Xbox app, it still needs huge improvement. The delivery mechanism is still the exact same as the store (the app itself is underpinned by the store) and many people are still having issues with basic functionality like downloading. Many people are having issues with Flight Simulator because it requires an account sign-in that the app keeps rejecting, even though you can still load the old Xbox Companion App and login that way. Their whole account system is creaky and needs work. I hope at some point they just divorce themselves from the failed experiment that is UWP too.

Of course compared to GFWL its still a big improvement but man, they are a software company first and foremost, they should really be doing better.

Heh.

Odyssey was proof that there definitely can be too much of a good thing. Too many forts, make less but more unique ones. Too many cultists/etc, make the encounters less numerable but more memorable. And so on. Everything in the game was done to death and even if you ignore the side content the game long overstays its welcome. The power curve with your character never felt right due to enemy scaling, whacking away at basic grunts gets really old. At first the gamification was welcome because we were all burnt out on trailing missions and other nonsense from the old games. But it turns out that maybe that stuff wasn't so bad, its just the usual Too Much problem at Ubisoft. Constantly designing the games with 10 different studios seems to ensure each sticks to an aspect of gameplay and makes a formula out of it. This is a Ubisoft problem in general, they stuff their games with too much cruft without considering the larger experience and arc. Weak writing also seems to follow them around - characters being introduced late into the story, constant pacing issues and incomprehensible conspiracy plot devices have been dogging them for a long time. Ubisoft desperately needs to learn that sometimes less is more. And frankly Odyssey would've been a lot more forgettable without the amazing VA performance of Melissanthi Mahut.

Anyways I can't say I'm super interested in this. It looks like the "hey we needed another one of these!" iteration. The games have totally lost track of what they set out to be and instead have become generic loot/level mashers. Ghost of Tsushima is filling the AC niche for me right now.

This comment was edited on Sep 9, 2020, 16:11.

Simon Says wrote on Sep 9, 2020, 14:31:

Verno wrote on Sep 9, 2020, 14:01:
Value is in the eye of the beholder. It's $599 in Canada by the way.

Doubtful, the current exchange rate puts 499 USD @ 656.91 CAD. Usually they take that and add some to it until they hit a price like say 659.99, add 14.95% taxes = ~759$

They NEVER cut back on the price after exchange rate before. I doubt they'll start now. Unless you got incontrovertible evidence to the contrary?

No one in Canada buys 1080p TVs anymore, cheapest 4K TVs have reached a price where cheaping out for 1080p is practically useless at the same sizes a few years back. The XSS is a joke.

Dude, I was giving you the announced price - it's $599 in Canada. And yeah that's great about 1080p TVs, the Series S does 4k upscaling and many people just buy the cheapest thing. I don't think you understand the console market, it's an entry level console. To me I don't like its price because of the lack of a disc drive but its an otherwise totally inoffensive entry level offering for people who don't have Series X money to plunk down. I am not getting either one but it's a smart play for the casual Gamepass crowd.

Simon Says wrote on Sep 9, 2020, 13:59:
I'd hardly call 500$ an "OK price" during a historic record economic depression. Much less in countries like Canada or Australia where 500 USD quickly becomes 750-800$ after exchange rate and taxes.

Value is in the eye of the beholder. It's $599 in Canada by the way. Australia gets hosed as usual but what else is new?

And the Series S is simply not worth it at its price, outclassed by current GPUs at the same price point, no doubt obliterated by the upcoming RDNA2/3000 series at the same price point.

Many people only play games on a television and don't care how their set top box compares to a GPU. I don't personally think its worthwhile but many people game at the low end of the market and 1080p/60fps is not the end of the world.

It's a really bad naming convention that they should've ditched. Playstation and Playstation Pro are easily understood without explanation. And explanation is the enemy when it comes to retail sales.

There will be limited hardware at launch so all companies will sell out regardless but creating marketplace confusion potentially hurts long term adoption. They also needed a bigger push outside of the US, the Xbox always does well in the US anyway. They needed better partnerships to shore up Japan and Europe. Their Australian pricing is downright insulting, especially when you look at the Canadian prices where they are taking a hit.

BIGtrouble77 wrote on Sep 9, 2020, 12:26:

Verno wrote on Sep 9, 2020, 12:18:
The prices are OK but I don't see any reason to buy one, they have no first party software at launch and what they showed at their previous event was mostly a bunch of title cards. A meh on both of their houses.

I know it's not for everyone, but isn't Flight Sim 2020 going to be available at launch?

They haven't confirmed a release date for it yet so I highly doubt it and I have it on the PC anyway. Assassin's Creed Valhalla seems to be their big "launch partner" title and it looks like an absolute snoozefest.

The prices are OK but I don't see any reason to buy one, they have no first party software at launch and what they showed at their previous event was mostly a bunch of title cards. A meh on both of their houses.

The second season is a marked decline in quality, I would have to agree. I'm just going to drop it and move onto other stuff, I was getting bored of the superhero/antihero send up by the end of the first season anyway.