Jasarien.Com

I know, I know, you didn’t care anyway.
But for anyone who did wonder where the Software pages have disappeared to, follow the link on over to JamSoft.

I noticed that I had one free domain registration with my new webhosting that I hadn’t used. So I thought I’d put it to some use and set up a dedicated place to put all the useless software that I write. Hopefully, as my skill as a developer increases, JamSoft will start to play a more serious role in my hopes to become a professional developer. Until then though, it’ll just be a home for the stuff I’ve already written.

I became a full fledged Switcher (I was going to link that to the Apple Switcher page, but apple.com/switch just redirects…) about 1 year and 8 months ago when I bought the first generation Intel iMac.
In hindsight, I kind of regret my decision to buy the iMac, and some times I don’t… Allow me to explain.

I’ll start by saying I have absolutely no regrets about switching to the Mac, none, nadda, zilch. The thing I do regret is the fact that I bought an iMac instead of a Power Mac (they were still available to buy back then). I justify my purchase of an iMac in the fact that I didn’t want to be part of the PowerPC user base that Apple was quickly phasing out. I also didn’t feel that going with a notebook was a good idea at the time either. So out of the two Intel variants that Apple were offering I chose the iMac. And for a long while I was very happy with it, no regrets (excluding the time the video chip failed, and it had to go in for service ).

About a year after owning the iMac, I decided after seeing the newly upgraded Santa Rosa Macbook Pro’s that I would like one of them. It was cheaper than the currently available Mac Pro’s and the 8600M GT graphics chip was extremely alluring. So I bought that, and began using it as a desktop replacement, using 23″ Cinema Display as my display of choice. It was great, I could use it as my main computer and as soon as I needed to up and leave, I could just unplug it and take it with me.

Although we all know that I like playing games - and not these silly things people call “games” like Zuma and Bejeweled (they’re what I like to call “almost-games”). Even if I do have to use Bootcamp and Windows, I do enjoy playing Call Of Duty 4 recently, as my Xfire Profile will attest. Being a gamer I’ve been kidding myself for the past year and 8 months that a mobile graphics solution is good enough for my needs. First the ATI X1600 in the iMac and now the nVidia 8600M GT in my Macbook Pro.

While the 8600M GT is a whole world better than the X1600, it’s still a mobile graphics chip. Meaning it’s under par for todays latest 3D number crunchers. It’s nice playing COD4 in a 1440×900 resolution. But even then I still have to turn down almost all the things that make the game look ‘nice’ just to get it run smooth enough to be playable. That means low textures, low model detail, no physics, no anti-aliasing, no anisotropic filtering. Because of this, the game looks like a bus ran over it. And then reversed, and then ran over it again. Lines are jagged, textures are blurry and undefined. It looks like something you might have played on the PSX in 1998. A modern game should not look 10 years old.

At the time I got the Macbook Pro, I was also considering getting the Mac Pro. It’d been available for quite while, the best part of the year I spent with the iMac. But it was a little pricey and the main thing I didn’t like was that it still had the same graphics card it was sold with when it was using PowerPC processors. What’s up with that? I didn’t want a X1900XT. Any nVidia card, mobile or not would be better than an ATI card. There were options to choose a 7300GT from nVidia, but in real world performance, it would have been around the same as the 8600M GT. And the 7300GT was more of a choice for those who wanted up to four 7300’s to hang more monitors on… I opted for the Macbook Pro.

But NOW. Apple have refreshed the Mac Pro with new Penryn Core 2 Duo’s and gasp! An 8800GT with 512MB of VRAM?! Finally! Apple has seen sense! There was also some hype about it being Oct-Core, but that’s just silly unless you’re performing abnormal amounts of data mining.

So, something I should have done a long time ago was refrained from buying the iMac, until the first generation Mac Pro was released. Even if it did have an ATI X1900XT, I could have kept it and used the 880GT upgrade kit which apple are now selling. Would have been a better choice, but no-one can tell the future.

I also read at Mac Rumors that the 8800GT upgrade kit isn’t yet compatible with older Mac Pros or Power Macs. Which would leave the only reason to buy one as being for someone who bought a Penryn Mac Pro with one of the ATI 2600HD cards, and wanted to change later to the 8800GT?
However, Steve Job’s apparently replied to a strongly worded letter from a customer saying that he would suggest calming down and that a fix is being worked on by Apple and nVidia. So that should work itself out.

… I wonder if Steve Jobs actually does reply to letter’s and e-mails personally?…