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The FAIL Feature
We were promised the moon on a stick, but we received less than a pebble. Stuart Andrews investigates nine technologies that were hyped into the stratosphere, but in reality, brought us crashing down to Earth.
Hype is the engine that drives the technology industry forward. Talk of groundbreaking, world-changing features makes a product irresistible on paper; nobody can imagine the finished product being less than successful. Enthusiasts are easily wowed by talk of high performance and capabilities beyond that of any existing product. Then the product goes on sale and is a disaster. Perhaps we don't have the features or the performance we expected, or a service doesn't provide what it should. In other cases, a promising technology dies from lack of support, or just drifts into well-deserved obscurity.
The technological graveyard of history is littered with the corpses of failed products and concepts, from discrete PhysX physics processors to the first AMD Phenoms, although some turned out even more disappointing than those woeful bits of silicon. In this feature, we cherry-pick the worst of the dodo devices, applications, APIs and gadgets, and wonder what and whom will be next on our list.
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Graphics cards with unified shader architecture were available prior to DX10, but one of the main reasons (if not the main reason) for them being created was DX10. So I think L3v's point is that it had a beneficial effect on graphics hardware design, even if the software is disappointing.
Comment by Sifter3000 at 8:39pm 13th October 2008
Unified shaders were available before DX10 hardware
Comment by pveater at 8:22pm 13th October 2008
I think its more like MS making a reasonable API and game developers using it. From everything that can be read out there DX10 is a better API over DX9. Its just game developers (more likely their managers) don't want training etc. in the new API they just want to get the game released and compatable with as many systems as possible (more potential sales). In this case (DX10) MS have done their part, its up to developers to start actually using it.
Comment by reashlin at 1:10pm 13th October 2008
Let's face it, there are two sides to DX10 The hardware - which rocks. Unified shaders are great The software - sucks. DX10 effects just kill the frame rate.
Comment by l3v1ck at 2:35am 12th October 2008
I don't own a blue ray player or a PS3 so i don't think i will get to carried away. I always thought thought that Toshiba scraped HD after blue ray got Warner Bros (also market confusion). It could so easily have gone the other way i don't see any huge gains with Blue ray over HD. I do own a 360 and a Toshiba 42" HD1080p TV you can see where i was headed till they killed the format at least i hadn't actual got the player yet. Till the average home TV is 37" 720p i agree the Humble DVD with 720×576 resolution is more than enough also agreed DVD's will be going far into the future like CD's dam things never die. As for usb sticks i have yet to see them in HMV in stacks with movies on (seen one or two in pc world thought) when they appear i will bow down before your insightfulness.
Comment by Cool_CR at 8:27pm 11th October 2008
That's what the article was saying actually... But nice to see more console bashing, like we need them.
Comment by EnzoLuca at 11:37am 11th October 2008
That's what the article was saying actually... But nice to see more console bashing, like we need them.
Comment by EnzoLuca at 11:37am 11th October 2008
Just a little comment about Sony... don't get too carried away about Blu-Ray. HD-DVD may have died and been discontinued but until Blu-Ray hits mainstream (average household owing 20+) I still believe that the whole race for HD discs was a none starter. In another 6-12 months we will have solid state flash pendrives of greater size and of an equivelant or even cheaper cost than HD discs. Not to mention online and direct tv services. I predict that within the next couple of years movies will completely move away from the disc format with DVD's being that last man standing due to its current cost effectivness. Sont will never get a return on it's investments in to Blu-Ray other than the profits it eventually makes from PS3 software sales.
Comment by PokerMuppet at 6:01am 11th October 2008
i agree is nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. how could microsoft claim this was to be a revolution in graphics and yet no game has delivered anything more than very very mild improvements. the killer has to be vista though, investment in DX10 is reliant on vista and needless to say, its nearly been two years since vista launched which is mind boggling to me, because the OS seems to have made minimal impact on the market overall.
Comment by vulcanproject at 11:14pm 10th October 2008
HD-DVD did everything it was supposed to but the format never took off due to blue ray (sony god bless them had to win one eventualy) Games for windows could still come round after all its just software.(here im going back on what i have said else were products are supported success or forgotten failures.)
Comment by Cool_CR at 9:21pm 10th October 2008
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