Killer n

Started by lexx · 5 posts · 880 views

  3. #3
    When I first heard about it, I thought no way.... However, once it came out and they started revealing how it actually works, I started coming around to the idea.

    http://www.killernic.com/reviews/default.aspx

    I think the reviews speak for themselves. There is some improvement in both framerate and pings. We even talked about it when it first came out.

    I don't know how familiar you are with Softmodems vs Hardware Modems. This is a similar concept. It pulls a lot of stuff off the OS that free's up CPU cycles for other things like Framerate, especially in games that are heavily dependent on CPU vs memory or hard drive speed.

    It is actually running an embedded form of Linux and acts as a sort of man in the middle OS between the Internet and your computer.

    If I had big bucks to spend on my PC, I would buy it in a heartbeat because anything that will allow you to bypass the terrible windows networking stack is a good thing. However at $179 and $249, it's just not something I am interested in. If it was to get below $100, I would give it serious consideration.

  4. #4
    I might do it for $20 or $30. I mean really for $180 you can bump your CPU, add ram or add a vid card and get much better framerates. I agree on the difference of hardware and software (or "winmodems"). It's great for marketing though, you know this will get preverted into a scheme of 'it'll make the internet run faster' and people think they'll see firefox improvements, the reality is you are only going to see it when you are maxxing out your machine

    though I will say someday it'll be typical... we have been aiming that direction for a while... at first it was an effort ot build everything into your motherboard and OS, now we are parting them out again. Video cards were once mainly a mobo part, then 3d cards, then to some extent physics cards. Same with sound... etc
  5. #5
    Bubbaspanky wrote:
    I might do it for $20 or $30. I mean really for $180 you can bump your CPU, add ram or add a vid card and get much better framerates. I agree on the difference of hardware and software (or "winmodems"). It's great for marketing though, you know this will get preverted into a scheme of 'it'll make the internet run faster' and people think they'll see firefox improvements, the reality is you are only going to see it when you are maxxing out your machine

    though I will say someday it'll be typical... we have been aiming that direction for a while... at first it was an effort ot build everything into your motherboard and OS, now we are parting them out again. Video cards were once mainly a mobo part, then 3d cards, then to some extent physics cards. Same with sound... etc

    I've read articles where they say some of it's gonna start relying on the processor again, since we're getting the dual cores and the quad cores. I thought the physics cards were gonna be the next '3D card", but with processors ramping up so much, I think that whole area is going to shrivel & die. Gamers will still want their graphics card (or cards). Most of us upgrade the video card once or twice before building a new system, and that's hard to do if it's on the motherboard. Sound might migrate back to a degree. Hard core gamers will probably want sound cards for a good long time though. Old habits die hard, and there will be companies working to give you things the on-board sound won't.

    One things for certain, though. They'll always build more toys than we can afford to buy 🙂