Tech Q: Hardware v. Software

What in the hell happened to your English? Were you run over by a bus?

pps - i gief dota2 lessunz 4 pokar lessunz

On September 20 2012 11:29 Carthac wrote: What in the hell happened to your English? Were you run over by a bus?

I realized that the heart of communication lies in communicating. You understand what I'm saying so who cares.

On September 20 2012 11:25 Arirang wrote: "well shit, we can't make things any better than it already is haha smoke weed"

Here is your answer

http://transcendentman.com/

technology can solve everything imo, even humans insatiable need for better technology is solved by the technology that will come along and give us the option to change our human nature.

philisophies like absurdism could get to a point where it cannot even be perceived if humans wished it so.

Well in my opinion software like OS is still going to develop and change a lot, incorporating more sophisticated graphics and more complex technologies, so i wouldn't expect personal computers to get much faster when it comes to responding to the user.
One thing that comes to my mind and which shows that hardware is not that far ahead of software requirements is mini laptops (10" with single core Atom cpus and 1gb ram, which were VERY common like a year ago and which had trouble running win7. Now an average desktop is only like 4times (?? rough estimate) more powerful, win7 runs smoothly on them, but I imagine that if the difference between win7 and win8 is as huge as between win7 and XP, we're going to need faster machines soon. Win8 beta should be already available, so maybe someone can comment, but the main thing is in the near future you'll still need to keep upgrading your hw.

Answer: $$$

This site so troll, everyone answers and none of them are answers to my questions LOL.

You could always make something imperceptibly faster. I mean, if you wanted to tax the worlds most sophisticated computer in 1000 years, just have it multiply 2² a trillion times, or a trillion TRILLION times, or whatever until it breaks. You could have software which scans the entire universe in x_amt of seconds, and then one day it will do the same thing ever faster. There is no finite clause since time is infinite, and all we're ever trying to achieve in computational horsepower is faster results. However if your goal is to simply "do good 'nuff", such as reproduce the holodeck from star trek, then yeah eventually hardware will catch up to the software and we'll finally peak.

they go hand in hand. software will reach limits based on hardware. as hardware progresses, so will the software. as long as hardware continues to develop, software will continue to develop for that platform.

to say software outruns hardware is sort of wrong - just as an example, we can look at gaming consoles.

a console (gaming platform) is created and software (games) are created to fit that platform. 2nd generation games come next, as software development find ways to better utilize the hardware. this continues until it reaches a wall, of sorts, where improvements would be so minor, or not existent, that for further development, the hardware would require an upgrade, or a new platform entirely.

sounds like you were stoned in class.

On September 20 2012 18:27 chris wrote: they go hand in hand. software will reach limits based on hardware. as hardware progresses, so will the software. as long as hardware continues to develop, software will continue to develop for that platform. to say software outruns hardware is sort of wrong - just as an example, we can look at gaming consoles. a console (gaming platform) is created and software (games) are created to fit that platform. 2nd generation games come next, as software development find ways to better utilize the hardware. this continues until it reaches a wall, of sorts, where improvements would be so minor, or not existent, that for further development, the hardware would require an upgrade, or a new platform entirely. sounds like you were stoned in class.

is this really true.

Because I remember like Crysis could not be ran on max settings on really good computers for a while. It took some time before there were hardwares that can run the game optimally at max settings. The whole class today was like how amazing new tech is today. And how rapidly it evolves. I don't really care much about graphics as long as it looks tasteful. I mean, I liked how Golden Axe 2 looked back in the day when you had shit for rams (and the game is like wat.. fuckin ~300kb or less? Genius). I liked how WC3 looks. And I play all modern games on ugly mode anyway.

I just don't get this cycle of new hardware coming out boasting its shiny new specs, then games that tries to take advantage of it and you end up having same performance issues as you always had. It never truly "gets" better as far as user experience goes since everything is relative. It's like we are all riding on some sort of tech bell curve that never ends or satisfies.

Just annoyed, and wondering if it will ever end. Eventually, it's gotta, right? I mean things are already looking quite spectacular already. How realistic and fancy can we really get.. fuck I hope we hit that wall soon so I don't ever worry about hardware shit.

On September 20 2012 18:27 chris wrote: to say software outruns hardware is sort of wrong - just as an example, we can look at gaming consoles. a console (gaming platform) is created and software (games) are created to fit that platform. 2nd generation games come next, as software development find ways to better utilize the hardware. this continues until it reaches a wall, of sorts, where improvements would be so minor, or not existent, that for further development, the hardware would require an upgrade, or a new platform entirely.

But think about what you're saying. The software had to be optimized to run better on the hardware. Technically if hardware upgrades scaled faster than software, then you could write some shit ass sloppy code and still expect good results. The reason there is a 2nd gen of games is because they had to find better ways to cope with the limitations of the hardware.

right - software will develop but will always have limitations set by hardware.

software doesnt necessarily develop 'faster', it is just that its life cycle is much shorter


as for video game on 'max settings' obviously you gotta get specialized hardware. the software doesnt matter if it cannot be run. doesnt matter if you design a car that can go 500 miles per hour if there is actually no engine that can run it. software built that cannot be run is just as useless, if not more useless, than slower software that can run.

that is why they go hand in hand. software can only develop as fast as the hardware, and the new hardware will develop only as the software reaches a point of maturation and decline in the product life cycle.

also, i understand what you are saying, and i think there is some truth, to a bell curve along the lines of technology. we get a new system and new software but aside from minor graphical interface improvements, it feels like the same thing.

i think it is a matter of scale as well, though. older systems were simpler and did less, and the hardware had more limitations. we have newer hardware, and the systems are heavier / larger.

i think in that sense, there are some limitations, or we may have 'hit a wall.' if you think about how long it takes to load a webpage, it hasnt change much from a few years ago until now. it takes about 1 second, if that, but i think some of the limitations come from our end (the user end) and our own biological ability to process.

obviously if we were machines, or had machine components (cyborgs) we could process and interpret data much faster.

when i was TV shopping a while ago, i was asking questions about the differences between 60 hz, 120 hz, and 240. i learned that our eyes cannot really process anything higher than 120, so the difference between a 120 hz vs 240 hz was minimal, if even noticeable.

while we could say, screw it lets smoke weed (which im not really opposed to) you could also figure out a way to increase our own ability to process - so 3D is emerging. i imagine it will not be way too long after that we go into some form of virtualization, or holograms, or something.

the point being, that while limitations surely do exist, as long as there is innovation and motivation, there will be ways to improve....unless we become god or something

and sorry to spam post, but in a further point to the discussion. we cannot write teleportation software or programs for star trek teleporters, because the hardware does not exist.

there would be no way to test its functionality.

fun discussion.

One thing to keep in mind is that as hardware becomes more performant, there is less pressure on the software creator to maximize efficiency of his code.

One prominent example is how application developers can, for most purposes, use very high level languages such as Ruby or Python for their codebase, even though these languages in general are less efficient than say, C or Assembly. But since hardware performance is so cheap and ubiquitous, sw devs can use the easier to use and faster to market tools and languages to ship their products. If there are bottlenecks in performance, than you can inject C code to whatever small portion of code requires that attention.

At least in one way, "as hardware becomes better, software no longer has the need to be as efficient as it can theoretically be."

Paul Graham thinks that eventually lisp macros will become mainstream, as they are (a) too resource intensive for the time being, but (b) eventually HW will become so cheap that the ease of expression and power of macros will win over.

This is by no means the whole picture, but is at least part of the story.

Hope this helps

On September 20 2012 20:41 Uptown wrote: One thing to keep in mind is that as hardware becomes more performant, there is less pressure on the software creator to maximize efficiency of his code. One prominent example is how application developers can, for most purposes, use very high level languages such as Ruby or Python for their codebase, even though these languages in general are less efficient than say, C or Assembly. But since hardware performance is so cheap and ubiquitous, sw devs can use the easier to use and faster to market tools and languages to ship their products. If there are bottlenecks in performance, than you can inject C code to whatever small portion of code requires that attention. At least in one way, "as hardware becomes better, software no longer has the need to be as efficient as it can theoretically be." Paul Graham thinks that eventually lisp macros will become mainstream, as they are (a) too resource intensive for the time being, but (b) eventually HW will become so cheap that the ease of expression and power of macros will win over. This is by no means the whole picture, but is at least part of the story. Hope this helps

ty this was informative

Ohh, ubiquitous!! That came up last night when I was reading my book, and I thought to myself "wtf does this mean lol"...

Became annoyed, it's late, pc is off, I don't want to move, in my bed and everything. So I tried that trick where I close my eyes, and I focus real hard, to try and "feel" what the word means, didn't work.

Forgot about it this morning, but now, BLAM, thanks to you, I remember!!

Let's check that fucker out xD

having or seeming to have the ability to be everywhere at once; omnipresent

Nice