>The Direct X version supported by GeForce 4 couldn’t even display the real pretty water textures at that time, or at least mine couldn’t on my GeForce 4 + amd64 laptop.
If I remember correctly you needed Shader model 3.0 support to get those fancy graphical effects which required GeForce FX series & 6th Series (6600/6800 etc).
My dad bought me HL2 back in Nov 2004. At the time my PC spec was:
P4, 512 RAM, GF FX5900XT, HDD 80Gb, Dial up 56k, LCD BenQ 1280x1024, Win XP.
The game was in English and I didn't speak it at all at the time so had to download the translation (700Mb audio files). Took me a couple days. With constant disconnects as dial up wasn't really reliable. Luckily, Steam allowed you to resume the download.
Still using that Steam account.
The game ran well. Although, my friend had Radeon 9600 Series and it performed noticeably better on his PC (or maybe I'm confusing it with a different game - Far Cry).
Yes. You can purchase dollars in exchange of Rubles.
Previous week it was aprox. 80 Rubles per U.S. Dollar.
Now due to the White House's statement that there will be sanctions against the Russia's central bank (they shouldn't able to use the reserves to keep Ruble stable) it is predicted that Ruble will collapse tomorrow.
>if Putin never would have allowed an independent Ukraine, why would NATO reject his demands to reject Ukraine's NATO application?
Euromaidan happened 2013. Putin already lost the Ukraine back then. By annexing the Crimea and sending Russian troops now he is taking the Ukraine back.
I may be mistaken but I think whether the Ukraine was actually joining NATO or not wasn't really relevant in this conflict IMHO.
>If Russia was going to invade anyway, why not at least try to de-escalate and negotiate for a sovereign Ukraine?
For the couples months there were negotiations. Was there a possibility to avoid the current conflict?
I think unless you're the U.S./Russian diplomat it's impossible to answer this question.
1) Some parts of the Ukraine (the Crimea and Southern regions of the Ukraine) have a significant pro Russian population, e.g. they wouldn't protest a lot against Russian influence.
2) On the other hand the Western parts of the Ukraine are more EU/Western aligned, hence they don't want to do anything with the Putin's regime.
From Putin's perspective an independent Ukraine is no-no.
And the West isn't willing to start WW3 over the Ukraine.
> Coverage of Apple in more exciting times (when it was basically a computer company)
I also miss times when Apple was all about Mac. Not much you can do about that.
But back then lots of people complained that Apple is turning into iPod company. It's just Gruber didn't write much about iPod (initially at least).
And considering M1 chips I can't say this isn't exciting times for the Mac. Imagine if Apple used Snapdragon chips (or whatever) and the latest Macs were similar in terms of performance to Surface Pro X... (and SP X couldn't even emulate x64 apps at launch).
> more humour, better reviews, more relevant links, less baseball and Kubrick BS, less politics for dummies, less "facebook is bad" for dummies, less open shill and more genuine enthusiast coverage, and so on.
OK, will not argue about baseball, politics or Facebook.
But I do remember lots of blog entries about how MS Windows is bad (viruses and inept marketing) and Mac is about being a better (and more secure) computer e.g. I wouldn't call that less open shill. Gruber was always (well, most of the time) on Apple's side.
Recently I re-read his PowerBook G4 review (Full Metal Jacket) and comparing to his other reviews regarding modern Intel and M1 Macs can't say I see a huge difference.
I imagine a number of people with Apple Cinema display connected to their PC would be really limited.