VIA producing a console? welcome DISCOVERCONSOLE
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marconelly!
Veteran
I am not sure how is this any better than a PC with a good video out? Even without video out, I'm pretty sure you can connect PCs to many HDTVs using the regular VGA cable and have progressive output that way.
I guess owners of this console will eventually find themselves baffled when they find out that 90% of the games actually require mouse and keyboard to be playable. Not looking forward to those 4 x M&K deathmatches in the living room
I guess owners of this console will eventually find themselves baffled when they find out that 90% of the games actually require mouse and keyboard to be playable. Not looking forward to those 4 x M&K deathmatches in the living room
Re: ...
Heck, you can get a full-blown Dell for $399 as it is right NOW! With a monitor. Heh...Deadmeat said:
marconelly! said:
I don't know of that many PC video cards with component video out that don't cost damn near as much as an entire DISCover console, (Do the AIW cards even support that? Probably not, it'd take up quite a bit of space).
And once again, show me a couple places that have good, cheap SFF cases with discrete graphics that are anywhere near in the same pricerange as the DISCover, and I'll look into buying one. You wouldn't believe how difficult it is to find good SFF PC cases.
marconelly!
Veteran
Then resort to my first question - how is this any better than a regular PC?
In any case, mouse in keyboard in the living room, I don't know, that doesn't sound very workable to me. I think this machine (as well as Phantom) might find it own small niche, but the chances of it having some mainstream appeal are pretty low.
To add to this a bit:
I'm not saying this is going to take off like a rocketship or anything, just that it isn't completely useless or even that bad of a deal. It has it's uses, and you shouldn't simply dissmiss it because it doesn't fit into your preconcieved notions of what a console or PC should be.
I'm not saying this is going to take off like a rocketship or anything, just that it isn't completely useless or even that bad of a deal. It has it's uses, and you shouldn't simply dissmiss it because it doesn't fit into your preconcieved notions of what a console or PC should be.
...
You can buy PSX2 and Xbox for less than $180, and never have to worry about incompatibility or configuring settings.
With this thing, you are forced to use a keyboard(not included) and a mouth just for configuring the PC game even if this auto-play thing works by simulating the pressed return key, because 99% of PC games out there do require a user configuration before a play. So the auto-play benefit of Discover console is gone, unless Via releases an auto configuration file specification for developers to use(Not difficult to support such an auto-configuration file, but there is no guarantee that a developer will use it).
This is a bad idea; it is basically a cheap PC with a third-rate CPU and a second rate GPU, monitor not included. You could buy a much more powerful Pentium4 PC for a little more.
But is it any better than what's out there??
You can buy PSX2 and Xbox for less than $180, and never have to worry about incompatibility or configuring settings.
With this thing, you are forced to use a keyboard(not included) and a mouth just for configuring the PC game even if this auto-play thing works by simulating the pressed return key, because 99% of PC games out there do require a user configuration before a play. So the auto-play benefit of Discover console is gone, unless Via releases an auto configuration file specification for developers to use(Not difficult to support such an auto-configuration file, but there is no guarantee that a developer will use it).
This is a bad idea; it is basically a cheap PC with a third-rate CPU and a second rate GPU, monitor not included. You could buy a much more powerful Pentium4 PC for a little more.
Even that second rate DeltaChrome GPU you're talking about will eat alive the 400 dollar Dell mentioned talking about, as well as XBox and PS2, even with it's 3rd rate CPU. And it also offers Digital Audio out, and a myriad of TV and monitor options, which is a tradeoff for the lack of the 50 dollar monitor and dvd burner they've included. We also don't know that it doesn't come with a keyboard and mouse. There's too many unknowns to simply pass judgement on it and bury it before it's even been launched. Wait till you see what Alienware releases on it before coming to the conclusion that it can't compete in a gaming sense with similarly priced PC's, (and this includes PC's in it's same size range. If you can find me some good SFF configurations that I could put together for a similar price, I'll be glad to look into them).
Edit: Unlike the Phantom, this one seems to actually have some industry backing, which means that it's gotta be impressing a couple of people. VIA, APEX, Alienware, and Gamespy aren't exactly stuck producing Carmen Sandiego titles.
Edit2: Create a model with video in, a larger HD, and a DVD burner and how in the hell can this be any worse, (in terms of price and/or performance), than a PSX?
Edit: Unlike the Phantom, this one seems to actually have some industry backing, which means that it's gotta be impressing a couple of people. VIA, APEX, Alienware, and Gamespy aren't exactly stuck producing Carmen Sandiego titles.
Edit2: Create a model with video in, a larger HD, and a DVD burner and how in the hell can this be any worse, (in terms of price and/or performance), than a PSX?
I'm not sure on this one. It does seem like a neat concept but it's likely to fail in the long run. Definitely not a direct competitor to any of the consoles out there due to the differences in the business plan. If everything is packed in and needed to run it on the TV or wherever you put it then it has a chance to become niche. If the ease of use is there is a chance a few people could pick it up as sort of a poor man's PC, but other than that I don't see many potential uses for this that upcoming consoles may possibly provide.
It's not cheaper than consoles--which already own the living room. And it has to overcome being more limiting than an actual PC and more hassle than a console to offer gaming that few enough people want on their TV's anyway let alone playing from a couch.Clashman said:
A Shuttle PC will be more expensive, but at least it will be EXACTLY what people expect from PC's, but also able to be much more powerful for gaming and still compact and easy to move.
If they think auto-installing is enough to compensate for all the limitations of only offering the PC gaming likely EVERYONE ALREADY CAN GET, they are soon to be surprised.
Clashman said:
I think ati has an adapter for any one of their video cards(past 8500) for about $20-$30 that offers component output. Now, can you build a PC with similar specs to the DISCover, with an ATI card comparable or better to Deltachrome, and buy the adapter for around the same price as the DISCover? Well, at long as DISCover isn't using an athlon 64, I'd say you could if you knew where to shop and got the best deals.
Sonic said:
My thoughts exactly. I want them to do well, but realistically their niche won't support them and the console vendors (Sony, MS, Nintendo) are to influential wrt developers if they try to venture into the more traditional marketplace.
If anything, I'd say that this will show that the connected livingroom doesn't want a PC-centric device at it's heart as many have talked about.
YeuEmMaiMai
Regular
i took it as a pentium at 3.2GHz
Fox5 said:
So if you really know your stuff and shop around all the time, than you could build a cheaper computer, (still probably not a decent SFF, though). Well that's all fine and dandy for most tech geeks who build their own, but in general people don't have the time, effort, and expertise to do the same. That doesn't change the fact that the DISCover isn't a bad deal by any means for what's offered, (nor is their spec limited to what's offered presently by VIA), and offers some, (however limited, you've got to admit that the drop and play gimmick does have some appeal), additional functionality over a normal PC. So how is this all a bad thing? Just because it doesn't cost the 180 bucks a PS2 does now, a whole 3 years after it came out? Get real. I'm not looking at this to replace my Atari Jaguar or Sega Dreamcast, I'm looking at it as a possibly viable alternative to the huge, clunkly, noisy, energy sucking box I'm currently typing this up on. What's so terribly wrong with that?
Clashman said:
Eh, what? Well, the oen thing the DISCover does have going for it is that I doubt you can find a smaller(and probably quieter as well) PC anywhere, whether you build it, buy a shuttle, or whatever. That thing was tiny, some of its dimensions were comparable to those new small PC game boxes, and it certainly looked smaller than gamecube. I kind of doubt it has a fan too. Forget having a portable computer for LAN parties, that thing could be a portable computer for just about anywhere parties. You could possibly even fit 1 in each pocket, if you have big pockets.
1st off, I said replace it in the sense that I'm not happy with my current huge, bulky box.
Secondly, I don't think they're limited to one size or style. If you look at the apex one, it's about the size of a DVD player. There were also smaller ones not much larger than a full size DVD drive, and probably larger ones as well.
Secondly, I don't think they're limited to one size or style. If you look at the apex one, it's about the size of a DVD player. There were also smaller ones not much larger than a full size DVD drive, and probably larger ones as well.
london-boy said:
In fact, NTSC is 720(704 to 768)x 480 and PAL is 720(704 to 768)x576. using anything else with normal TV set uses always some sort of scaling which is a bad thing(tm.) and as a knowledge, Deltachrome has Hardware 100% compliant HDTV signal coder, so all HDTV resolutions are definitely possible, though highest ones won't most likely be very quick on nowadays games.
Also about TV-outs, once you have seen RGB-component TV-out with proper PAL / NTSC interlacing and timings, everything else looks just plain sad. (real freaks still using older tv-sets (hdtv isn't really that usual in europe) start their tv-out setup with VGA -> SCART RGB converter cable and PowerStrip video timing tweaking.) I have never seen YUV component tv-out, but it has to be somewhere between S-Video and RGB-component out.
I thought that in site like this, stuff like TV-Out tweaking to max would be a bit better known than just hitting Composite in and start game on some working resolution... :?
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