If the rumors are true, who should be the new president of Xbox division?

[martinmc78]

Everyone, just wanted to remind/inform everyone that Don Mattrick was not fired. This has nothing to do with the Xbox One PR or anything related.

It has already been stated/explained that, as a result of the upcoming reorganization from Ballmer, Don Mattrick's position was going to be merged/downgraded to reflect the division/department changes in the company. Don Mattrick wanted to play a bigger role in the company than he was going to be playing after the reorganization, so he chose to continue his career elsewhere.

If Don Mattrick was fired or forced to leave, there would absolutely not be an extremely nice and positive PR email about his exit from the company. If someone leaves on bad terms, it always reflects from the company's reactions.

So please, no more talk about bad Xbox One PR, similarities/relations to Sinofsky, etc. This was not a firing.

Try not to get banned again buddy - I miss your posts.

 

[Robert Carpenter]

Try not to get banned again buddy - I miss your posts.

Thanks man, that warms my heart haha. I managed to one-up myself at The Verge during my ban, and got banned from The Verge permanently. That mad me chuckle lol.

I think it's ironic because if I remember correctly, the first time I ever got banned was actually from arguing with you about the HTC 8X sim card errors Oh how time flies...

 

[martinmc78]

Thanks man, that warms my heart haha. I managed to one-up myself at The Verge during my ban, and got banned from The Verge permanently. That mad me chuckle lol.

I think it's ironic because if I remember correctly, the first time I ever got banned was actually from arguing with you about the HTC 8X sim card errors Oh how time flies...

Considering some of the comments that go in the verge discussions I cant even imagine what you wrote to pick up a permanent ban.

Yeah we did get a bit heated over that one. Like you I don't like backing down without concrete proof that I am wrong - and seeing as the report I got back from HTC claimed hardware and software failure on my old 8X I guess we were both right.

 

[Robert Carpenter]

Considering some of the comments that go in the verge discussions I cant even imagine what you wrote to pick up a permanent ban.

Yeah we did get a bit heated over that one. Like you I don't like backing down without concrete proof that I am wrong - and seeing as the report I got back from HTC claimed hardware and software failure on my old 8X I guess we were both right.

After an insanely stupid post from someone, I gave them some advice and insisted on suicide as the primary option. I kind of worded it a bit differently, but I mean.... at least I started off the post with "I may be going too far here, but....". The ban reason was: "Yes, that was definitely a bit too far."

It was my first infraction there ever. I guess they are a little less forgiving than WPCentral LOL

 

[berty6294]

After an insanely stupid post from someone, I gave them some advice and insisted on suicide as the primary option. I kind of worded it a bit differently, but I mean.... at least I started off the post with "I may be going too far here, but....". The ban reason was: "Yes, that was definitely a bit too far."

It was my first infraction there ever. I guess they are a little less forgiving than WPCentral LOL

lmao you shoulda seen me over at ZuneBoards. I was banned every other day leading up to 3 PermaBans.

 

[Keith Wallace]

They've never used it, they don't know whats wrong with it, just that its "buggy, slow, and that it crashes a lot", none of which are true in the least. Most people also don't know the difference between windows 8 and windows RT. When they launched the surface, they should've launched the PRO and the RT versions at the same time, or if they couldn't should've launched the PRO first as that is the model most people are interested in. Also, watching the demo unit for the surface fail during the keynote with sinofsky was pretty funny too lol.

I'll disagree with you there. With Windows 7, I never really had issues with crashing. However, on Windows 8, I have had several occurrences where the display driver repeatedly crashes and the screen flickers, which usually lasts for about a minute. I'd say that it's also a given that my PC will completely crash once or twice a week. I'm not sure what the cause is, but while I'll agree that Windows 8 isn't slow, it does seem to be more buggy and crash-prone, from my personal experiences (not to say that they speak to the product as a whole). I still like Windows 8 just fine, just saying that I have experienced something other than what you have.

As for the 8-RT thing, I honestly believe that RT never should have happened. It simply shouldn't exist. The options should have been 32-bit Atom Windows 8 (which gets comparable performance and battery life to the ARM-based RT tablets) and the 64-bit Windows 8. Both offer MOST of the application support of Windows 7, and one could have countered laptops/hybrids while the other countered the tablet market. The Atom processors are good enough to compete with ARM-based offerings from Apple and Android OEMs, in my opinion. There's just no fit for RT tablets, if Intel's next-generation Atom (Bay Trail?) closes the graphical gap in the slightest (as I've heard that 3D graphics are the Atom's weakness).

 

[In Limbo]

Pedro!!!

 

[JerseySal]

Chester A Arthur

Hope this was helpful.

 

[martinmc78]

Chester A Arthur

Hope this was helpful.

Surely Ed Winchester would be a better choice?

 

[Keith Wallace]

Chester A Arthur

Hope this was helpful.

 

[Reflexx]

^ In celebration, I would like to nominate Robert Carpenter and Winning Guy for that position!

Woo hoo! Free XBOX ONEs for everyone!


...wait, I'm fired already?

 

[EchoRedux]

@Keith Wallace

I built my computer and stuck windows 8 consumer preview on it. Upgraded to the real thing. Never once had a crash. Curious how old your hardware is and what your specs are?

 

[a5cent]

I'll disagree with you there. With Windows 7, I never really had issues with crashing. However, on Windows 8, I have had several occurrences where the display driver repeatedly crashes and the screen flickers, which usually lasts for about a minute.

I had the same problem. At least in my case the problem had nothing to do with W8, but the nVidia driver being distributed through Windows Update. I removed it and reverted back to the previous version and haven't had a single crash or screen flicker since. Might work for you too?

 

[Keith Wallace]

@Keith Wallace

I built my computer and stuck windows 8 consumer preview on it. Upgraded to the real thing. Never once had a crash. Curious how old your hardware is and what your specs are?

Little bit of variance there. Most of it's from a late-2009 build. I got the CPU (Phenom II X2 550, unlocked to a quad), motherboard (ASUS M4A78T-E, I think), HDD (WD 640GB, I think Caviar Black), and DVD-ROM drive (generic LG) in September or so of 2009. After getting fed up with the on-board graphics, I got a video card (Radeon HD 5850), which came with a free PSU (650W Thermaltake, I believe) for Christmas 2009. The case (Rosewill Blackhawk) and RAM (32 GB G.SKILL Ripjaws) were Christmas gifts from just this past year.

So most of it's a bit over 3 years old, but the RAM (4 GB wasn't cutting it anymore) and the case (the old one had only one fan, so I always had the side door off, meaning a LOT of dust in it) are just over 6 months old.

 

[Keith Wallace]

I had the same problem. At least in my case the problem had nothing to do with W8, but the nVidia driver being distributed through Windows Update. I removed it and reverted back to the previous version and haven't had a single crash or screen flicker since. Might work for you too?

I think I need to update the drivers for the video card, actually. I don't remember if I did it after installing Windows 8 or not. It's just such an uncommon occurrence that I haven't paid too much attention to the matter.

 

[Ridemyscooter86]

I'll disagree with you there. With Windows 7, I never really had issues with crashing. However, on Windows 8, I have had several occurrences where the display driver repeatedly crashes and the screen flickers, which usually lasts for about a minute. I'd say that it's also a given that my PC will completely crash once or twice a week. I'm not sure what the cause is, but while I'll agree that Windows 8 isn't slow, it does seem to be more buggy and crash-prone, from my personal experiences (not to say that they speak to the product as a whole). I still like Windows 8 just fine, just saying that I have experienced something other than what you have.

As for the 8-RT thing, I honestly believe that RT never should have happened. It simply shouldn't exist. The options should have been 32-bit Atom Windows 8 (which gets comparable performance and battery life to the ARM-based RT tablets) and the 64-bit Windows 8. Both offer MOST of the application support of Windows 7, and one could have countered laptops/hybrids while the other countered the tablet market. The Atom processors are good enough to compete with ARM-based offerings from Apple and Android OEMs, in my opinion. There's just no fit for RT tablets, if Intel's next-generation Atom (Bay Trail?) closes the graphical gap in the slightest (as I've heard that 3D graphics are the Atom's weakness).

Unfortunately when it comes to drivers, and I'm not saying this to necessarily defend windows, but usually its because of the gpu manufacture. Especially on display drivers, since I've personally noticed that they seem to have more problems than anything in general, I mean windows 8 has been about the same for me, in terms of crashing and such as windows 7 was. If its your display driver malfunctioning, I can almost guarantee either you need an update, or the driver is just bad...

As for windows RT, and I've said this many times and I'll say it again, its a contingency plan for MS. ARM is still the largely dominant force in tablets and smartphones, Intel is the dominant force in desktops/laptops. The problem becomes that nobody really knows which way the market will go. look at apple, for example they have OSX and iOS, they don't know either. ARM is trying to make inroads into desktops/servers and intel is making inroads into tablets and smartphones as well. Sure you might not like RT but it is necessary for them because if MS doesn't have RT and arm does take over for whatever reason, they are set to go either which way.

Also, as you said earlier, and as someone that owns an atom tablet, their gpus are awful compared to ARM gpus. I mean most good games running on arm processors look about the level of xbox360 quality graphics. I tried running a 13 year old game on my atom tablet and it could barely run smoothly on the lowest setting at the lowest resolution (deus ex). So yes, in terms of battery life and processing, the intels are competetive with arm, but the better arm processors still have 3 major things over intel: battery life (while not by a huge margin, still about an hour or two at most), graphics (just spank intel on this one), and connectivity (all the qualcomms have LTE and so do the tegra 4's if I'm not mistaken, another thing intel does not have). Sure intel is just breaking into the tablet section and they've done a decent job so far, but they still have a long way to go to catch up to arm.

 

[Keith Wallace]

Honestly, I'm surprised that AMD hasn't tried to jump the gun on the x86 tablet market better. They are actually a GPU manufacturer, which is why you've seen them produce APUs with quality graphics, as opposed to the mess thrown into the Core CPUs Intel makes (where the GPU's not even worth bothering with). People can actually power a desktop with an AMD APU's graphics, though it's not ideal. Intel's built-in graphics are useless for desktops, basically.

I think that if AMD could manage a 4-core APU with better power economics than what the 6- and 8-core ones run at, they could have a decent alternative to the Atoms for tablets.

 

[vertigoOne]

Honestly, I'm surprised that AMD hasn't tried to jump the gun on the x86 tablet market better. They are actually a GPU manufacturer, which is why you've seen them produce APUs with quality graphics, as opposed to the mess thrown into the Core CPUs Intel makes (where the GPU's not even worth bothering with). People can actually power a desktop with an AMD APU's graphics, though it's not ideal. Intel's built-in graphics are useless for desktops, basically.

I think that if AMD could manage a 4-core APU with better power economics than what the 6- and 8-core ones run at, they could have a decent alternative to the Atoms for tablets.

I currently own 3 computers that utilize Intel IGPs, one desktop, one laptop, and the Surface Pro. I have found that they can all handle games very well, and I even do some pretty hefty gaming on the Surface Pro now.

 

[Keith Wallace]

I currently own 3 computers that utilize Intel IGPs, one desktop, one laptop, and the Surface Pro. I have found that they can all handle games very well, and I even do some pretty hefty gaming on the Surface Pro now.

Intel's built-in GPUs aren't on-par with what AMD offers in its APUs, though. Granted, the CPU comparison isn't close on the other side of the fence, but the Intel HD 4000 graphics are sub-par.

Also, which desktop and laptop do you have? I've never even known a desktop to be sold without a discrete GPU, except in the case of the newer AMD APU-powered ones (even then, that's typically a cheap, self-built thing).

 

[vertigoOne]

Intel's built-in GPUs aren't on-par with what AMD offers in its APUs, though. Granted, the CPU comparison isn't close on the other side of the fence, but the Intel HD 4000 graphics are sub-par.

Also, which desktop and laptop do you have? I've never even known a desktop to be sold without a discrete GPU, except in the case of the newer AMD APU-powered ones (even then, that's typically a cheap, self-built thing).

The Laptop is a Toshiba Satellite that I got for $250 at Best Buy almost a year ago. The processer is a newish Pentium. I wasn't expecting much of it, but it surprised me how capable it is in comparison to every netbook/nettop that I have tried. It is the least capable of the three to be sure, but still handles emulators surprisingly well. The desktop is a Sandy Bridge i3 with intel HD graphics (2500 maybe?) that I built myself just to test out after reading many articles about it. The system is approaching 2 years old now.

I'm not going to say that Intel's integrated graphics processing is better than AMD, but only that it is a little unfair to use terms such as "mess" and "useless" to describe them. I had one of the original Asus Zenbooks shortly after building that desktop because I saw the advancements as pretty remarkable myself, and the experience I had with the Zenbook sealed it for me. I sold the Zenbook shortly before the Ivy Bridge refresh and then just decided to hold out for the Surface Pro.