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Latest Comments by emphy
The latest Linux-powered 'Atari VCS' update gives a small behind the scenes look at their progress
30 August 2018 at 4:20 am UTC

Let me get this straight: the specifically went into the indiegogo campaign claiming they had a working prototype (it was in their indiegogo description and it was the stage they selected), but now they admit they are, in reality, still in the concept stage?

Starting a campaign without prototype is allowed on indiegogo, but one has to select the right product stage:
https://support.indiegogo.com/hc/en-us/articles/221613968

Quoting: hummer010I still don't get the Bristol Ridge decision. Raven Ridge seems like a much better choice. I might be willing to actually buy it if it was Raven Ridge...

Most likely, the decision was purely financial, possibly getting a very nice deal on chips few other companies would want.

The space 4x strategy game 'Star Ruler 2' is now open source
24 July 2018 at 10:15 pm UTC

Quoting: GGLucas...

Personally I've always been a big fan of pay-what-you-want models, although sadly the idea hasn't really caught on as much as I'd hoped.

...


Heh, probably too late for this (and would require extra work for you), but itch.io has this option. If I understand correctly, another upside of selling there is that they also take a lower cut of the sales.

Atari VCS RAM upgraded to 8GB and Atari confirm you can put a normal Linux distribution on it
24 July 2018 at 9:48 pm UTC

Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: emphy
Quote...
When the Ryzen is operating in a thermally limited environment its performance is only marginally better than Bristol Ridge.

BS. There is no way in hell that the improved architecture and move to 14nm from 28nm in manufacturing is going to give a marginal performance improvement.

I strongly suspect that a bigger factor was that amd, having to get rid of a bunch of bristol ridge CPU's and chipsets that no one wants, gave a very nice deal to atari.

I think the point was that it auto throttles when it is too hot, and when that happens the performance isn't much better. Anyone ever tested this to see if it is bullshit? Curious if they are lying or not.

Doesn't matter: this generation, AMD improved performance per watt on their cpu's so much it's not even funny. Apart from both chips being equally down clocked in any thermally constrained situation (probably bristol ridge gets down clocked more, due to the manufacturing process), even the high end bristol ridge chips require a significantly higher clock speed to keep up with even the low end ryzen processors.

As an example, in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7dOo_H2YbM , the ryzen 3 beats the a10 by, roughly, 70-80fps vs 40-50fps, at 50-60% cpu utilisation vs 80-90%

The only thinkable situation where atari's statement on ryzens performance in a thermally constrained environment might be true would be in an office environment, most certainly not when playing games from the last two decades.

Atari VCS RAM upgraded to 8GB and Atari confirm you can put a normal Linux distribution on it
22 July 2018 at 8:51 am UTC

Quote...
When the Ryzen is operating in a thermally limited environment its performance is only marginally better than Bristol Ridge.

BS. There is no way in hell that the improved architecture and move to 14nm from 28nm in manufacturing is going to give a marginal performance improvement.

I strongly suspect that a bigger factor was that amd, having to get rid of a bunch of bristol ridge CPU's and chipsets that no one wants, gave a very nice deal to atari.

The Atari VCS team aren't doing themselves any favours by accusing The Register of being professional trolls
24 June 2018 at 8:54 pm UTC

Quoting: mandersson
Quoting: Narvarth
Quoting: emphyEven if we assume good faith from the company (that's a huge assumption)

Well, maybe you're right, and it's a case of blatant theft (what about the money collected on indiegogo ?). If it's true, we can say that the brand will be definitely dead in spring 2019...

Atari stated before the start of the indiegogo campaign that i would use crowd funding primary as a way for the community to influence the project,and as a bonus funds for the project without interest.This is the first crowd funding attempt from Atari.They have done what they have told during the campaign but nothing more.Maybe the expectations was to high?

Last year they signed quite a few deals for other companies to use the Atari brand.Their last financial report was the first in a long time to show profit so i doubt that they want to ruin the value of their intellectual property by doing something stupid.

I serious doubt that any company would dare to invest in a linux based console again if all they get is bad press and hate from the open source community...

Just because they are using linux does not mean they get a free pass; the atari brand has been dragged through the mud for the last few years by their own actions. Now they are asking money up front, showing nothing more than some suggestive videos and plastic models, on a crowd funding site with a less than stellar reputation in regards to checking on project quality. Imo, a bit of healthy scepticism is definitely called for here.

Note: this is not the first crowd funding attempt by atari: they also tried it with the roller coaster tycoon mobile port for the switch.

The Atari VCS team aren't doing themselves any favours by accusing The Register of being professional trolls
23 June 2018 at 8:29 pm UTC

Quoting: Narvarth...

Let's check the real facts : people backing it on indiegogo will get a mini-PC with hundreds (thousands ?) games already available and a cool design for this price. Can we really call this a scam ?

Please stop feeding all the youtube/click bait trolls.


It's really disappointing that we have to explain such evident facts on a Linux website...

If atari actually delivers the system, people backing this on indiegogo may get a mini-pc. You may want to check on the history of successfully delivered crowd funded Atari branded products to check how likely that is.

If the Atari brand wasn't raising red flags already, the use of indiegogo and the ludicrously low initial funding goal should.

Even if we assume good faith from the company (that's a huge assumption), they don't exactly inspire confidence that they are capable of actually delivering on the project.

The Atari VCS team aren't doing themselves any favours by accusing The Register of being professional trolls
23 June 2018 at 4:43 am UTC

Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: emphy
Quoting: cprnI don't get it. Why are they lynching the guy? His responses make perfect sense.

He brought a design unit that isn't a final product and isn't meant to work with other devices so he can't know what will happen if somebody tries to connect them. He's not at liberty to say what went wrong during launch, yet they keep asking what it was. He gets as close to the truth as he can by giving them an analogy that suggests it was one specific aspect that came out sub-par in final testing and has been improved since then but isn't in production yet and they bash him for comparing it to a rocket launch even though it worked perfect with both having issues coming out last second. He doesn't want to release specs because they try to keep them up to date and will update before public release so announcing now what they were going to launch before would just be outdated in a few months. He's frustrated he cannot answer them straight without possibly violating NDAs. When inviting them he said he has design models, which means these aren't meant to be run but to be touched, felt, to prove they keep working on the project and he explains it's because they don't have a UI yet. He says project has money to move forward. He says business negotiations with distributors are taking place.

And what they took out of it is they were invited to play a game even though nobody said so? And that nothing works even though the guy said PCB is functional? Basically, they wrote a bullshit article because they hyped themselves and misunderstood the intention of the whole thing. That's not journalism. It's like getting invited to see a brand new type of plates and complaining there wasn't any food on them.

They're not lynching the guy; they're lynching the company. Infogrames has a recent history of shitty cash grabs (e.g RC world getting released way too early from early access the day before planet coaster), so Infogrames has to prove that this ludicrous crowd funding campaign isn't one. Inviting the press to show a plastic model and, basically, answering no questions is not the way to do that...

I'm not saying that's a shit thing to do, but let's face facts, game publishers are KNOWN for doing this.. ALL... THE... TIME... defintely not something that just they did. They sign contracts with developers and a lot of times the developers don't meet the deadlines and the games get released in broken states. This is status quo now. It isn't like the good old days where a game released with no easy patch system in place, so game makers had to actually make sure the games WORKED before they were released.

Look at all the Bethesda games, without a doubt every time they release a new game it's pretty terrible and buggy, it isn't usually fixed until quite some time later.

Should they clean up their act? Certainly. But I kind of think that applies to most publishers/developers.

I don't think you quite realize how bad infogrames has gotten:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ_I9-CkzDE

The Atari VCS team aren't doing themselves any favours by accusing The Register of being professional trolls
23 June 2018 at 1:54 am UTC

Quoting: cprnI don't get it. Why are they lynching the guy? His responses make perfect sense.

He brought a design unit that isn't a final product and isn't meant to work with other devices so he can't know what will happen if somebody tries to connect them. He's not at liberty to say what went wrong during launch, yet they keep asking what it was. He gets as close to the truth as he can by giving them an analogy that suggests it was one specific aspect that came out sub-par in final testing and has been improved since then but isn't in production yet and they bash him for comparing it to a rocket launch even though it worked perfect with both having issues coming out last second. He doesn't want to release specs because they try to keep them up to date and will update before public release so announcing now what they were going to launch before would just be outdated in a few months. He's frustrated he cannot answer them straight without possibly violating NDAs. When inviting them he said he has design models, which means these aren't meant to be run but to be touched, felt, to prove they keep working on the project and he explains it's because they don't have a UI yet. He says project has money to move forward. He says business negotiations with distributors are taking place.

And what they took out of it is they were invited to play a game even though nobody said so? And that nothing works even though the guy said PCB is functional? Basically, they wrote a bullshit article because they hyped themselves and misunderstood the intention of the whole thing. That's not journalism. It's like getting invited to see a brand new type of plates and complaining there wasn't any food on them.

They're not lynching the guy; they're lynching the company. Infogrames has a recent history of shitty cash grabs (e.g RC world getting released way too early from early access the day before planet coaster), so Infogrames has to prove that this ludicrous crowd funding campaign isn't one. Inviting the press to show a plastic model and, basically, answering no questions is not the way to do that...

The Atari VCS team aren't doing themselves any favours by accusing The Register of being professional trolls
22 June 2018 at 11:23 pm UTC

The company formerly known as Infogrames, that is calling itself Atari nowadays, does not exactly have a recent track record that inspires confidence. Even if they do release that system, it is highly unlikely that it will be anything different from the quick cash grabs any of their other recent releases have been.

Basingstoke from Puppy Games is a tense mix of stealth and action, it's out now
28 April 2018 at 11:56 pm UTC

Quoting: PatolaSeems quite good but sort of expensive right now... I'll wait for sales, preferably on steam because they have regional prices.

That's what I thought; I'll just subscribe to their patreon $1/month and check out the game in 5 months ^_^