My congrats too. Stardock gets a big

on noes someone claimed steam is resource intensive.. everyone hide before the steam s come and throw a hissy.

Unfortunately, the 'atom' processor yields at best 30% success (approximate figure based on specs and game 'needs'). Dual 'Atoms' do better, but use power. The "Ontario" fusion chip promises to do better and should be coming along on 10" netbooks sometime soon. The problem still remains the screen size/resolution and the need of the game.

Link  (notebook)

Link  (netbook)

So wait, a C++ application (steam) is slower than a .NET application (impulse)?

It's possible but I doubt it given how good Valve's development teams seem to be and Stardock is well... Stardock.

It uses less as in it can be turned off (unlike Steam which runs in the background) leaving more resources availible while playing games.

Then there is application size from the features they provide. And the burden of .NET is at load time when it is converted to machine code, but run with comparable speed* if the software doing the conversion is done well.

* Worse if the conversion creates poor machine code, faster if it can do processor specific optimiztions well.

Besides, Impulse doesn't collect info about you, your computer and the programs on it like Steam does.

Steam must be doing that ineffeciently, as it did not stop two Google apps from being on the list.

For games, digital distribution is still lost on me. Most of my apps are bought on line, but they are directly from the manufacturer. If it wasn't for Object Desktop, I doubt I would have Impulse installed.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have any issues with Impulse being installed, I actually like the program and it's abilities. I'm just not a fan of digital distribution in it's current form.

The selling point for digital distribution (as a whole) was cheaper pricing than hard copies that you purchased in a brick and mortar store, since there was no packaging and discs to create, yet every game I see sold online is priced the same.

Since overhead is lower and they sell more copies than physical stores, how do these online outlets justiify charging the same price?  

I pick up the games I buy from Best Buy. They normally run a sale on a game for the first week of release so you can pick up a hard copy around $10.00 cheaper than buying it on line.  

By charging it and getting it. Their profit margin is their justification.

But, you won't get patches, etc. which might be needed as time goes by.

To convince everyone that digital distribution was the wave of the future a few years ago, game producers promised that prices would go down accordingly. I chalk it up to corporate greed.

As for the updates...most games you purchase in stores require you to install Steam for activation. I currently have over 10 games installed that are registered to my Steam account and not a one was purchased through Steam.

Everyone of those required me to install Steam for online activation. Also, all updates are done through Steam and if your not in offline mode, you are forced to update a game before you can play it.

Have I mentioned that I despise Steam.

And people complain about Impulse? Good grief!

I believe frogboy pointed out that the actual material costs of a physical copy(CD, book etc) were never actually a significant portion of the price to begin with. So ya it was probably just hyperbole help people transition faster.

The HP dm1z with the AMD E-350 APU and the Acer AO522 with the slower C-50 APU have been out although with the former just starting to arrive to their owners last week.  There are some vids with users sharing their experiences so far and they've been pretty decent for some older games.  But they still won't be up to snuff for many recent releases.  Anandtech also has a review of an ITX board with the E-350.  Lenovo's Thinkpad x120e is also coming out some time this month along with offerings from other manufacturers like Asus.