Do not rush to upgrade to your favorite program.
A year and a half ago, I updated my computer, joining the happy owners of Core 2 Duo processors. Then I thought that all the problems with the speed of the computer were solved for a couple of years, only for games you will have to update the video card. But, as soon as I installed new versions for many years of used programs, I discovered an interesting feature - they did not get better. This applies in particular to Winamp and Nero.
I have used Winamp since the 90s, when not all computers allowed playing music. If anyone remembers, the system requirements "Pentium 166 MHz" were written on mp3 disks. What new useful features have appeared over the years? Good support for Russian fonts and beautiful themes. But do not be surprised if you have to wait some time when pressing some buttons. This is probably the price paid for such a rich expansion of functionality.
Another example is Nero. I still use the sixth version and I am completely satisfied with it (I’ll benefit from the IDE drive). But I tried to install new versions. Seven in my personal rating on intrusiveness ranks first among all existing programs, and I did not have time to get acquainted with it well, because after a few minutes it was already removed. I got acquainted with the eight a little better (a couple of hours), it took up one and a half gigabytes of space on the system disk and did not allow creating boot disks. Half the time I was looking for how to create a boot disk in it. It turned out that it was a stripped-down version (a stripped-down version is one and a half gig, ok!). There is such a miracle as the ninth version, but it was not possible to try it.
')
This begs the question: where do programmers use the increased speeds of processors and the increased volumes of hard drives? If the player, with essentially the same functionality on the processors, is at least 10 times faster, it still slows down, and another program weighing one and a half gigabytes cannot provide the same functionality that was in the 70MB version. These examples, of course, special cases and most other programs do not suffer from such obvious disadvantages. But the tendency of using resources by programs is wasted. But the speed of modern computers are no longer growing as before, the “megahertz race” has long ended. And nothing revolutionary on the horizon is visible: an increase in the number of cores so far gives an increase not in all applications, and the frequencies have already stopped for several years in the area of ​​the magic number “3”. So when will the real "general program optimization" begin? I have a strong feeling that if the programs were optimized, as before, they would not just fly now, they would overcome the pull of the Earth. :) And the main focus is on design, usability and integration with the Internet. Programs like Winamp, Nero and Word have been providing essentially unchanged functionality for many years. Why pay for it with computer resources?
In my understanding, quad-core home computers are now needed only for 3D modeling, video transcoding and some games (greetings to GTA 4). It turned out not. Software makers are preparing us like this: get ready that the next version will work “especially well” on quad core.
PS Do not ask why cited so few examples. I do not use a huge number of programs not related to work . When converting enough fingers of two hands. Why do not I use other programs similar in functionality? In winamp, the library is well tuned, and it is much more convenient for me to use it than, for example, foobar 2000. And Nero 6, as I mentioned, is completely fine with me, as I will replace the drive with satashny, of course, I will have to change the program used. But you yourself can give examples of such programs, there are a lot of them.
PPS There are also reverse examples, although I began to use them relatively recently, their speed and consumed resources hit me: BitTorrent, VMWare. A virtual machine was especially surprised - pressing a pause introduces Linux to sleep in a few (up to 5) seconds, and the speed of work in Linux itself is excellent. Of course, the virtual machine consumes enough resources, but the fact that Amarok inside the virtual machine works no worse than Winamp in Windows is surprising.
PPPS All this concerns only Windows XP. I can't say anything about whist.
UPD: For publicity. ) Many advised to try AIMP2. Download, try. Excellent program, the basic configuration already includes support for .cue and .flac files. No need to change anything for the correct display of Russian fonts. In memory, it takes 6-8 MB, the processor loads on a fraction of a percent. In no, no demand does not climb. In short, I recommend.
I have used Winamp since the 90s, when not all computers allowed playing music. If anyone remembers, the system requirements "Pentium 166 MHz" were written on mp3 disks. What new useful features have appeared over the years? Good support for Russian fonts and beautiful themes. But do not be surprised if you have to wait some time when pressing some buttons. This is probably the price paid for such a rich expansion of functionality.
Another example is Nero. I still use the sixth version and I am completely satisfied with it (I’ll benefit from the IDE drive). But I tried to install new versions. Seven in my personal rating on intrusiveness ranks first among all existing programs, and I did not have time to get acquainted with it well, because after a few minutes it was already removed. I got acquainted with the eight a little better (a couple of hours), it took up one and a half gigabytes of space on the system disk and did not allow creating boot disks. Half the time I was looking for how to create a boot disk in it. It turned out that it was a stripped-down version (a stripped-down version is one and a half gig, ok!). There is such a miracle as the ninth version, but it was not possible to try it.
')
This begs the question: where do programmers use the increased speeds of processors and the increased volumes of hard drives? If the player, with essentially the same functionality on the processors, is at least 10 times faster, it still slows down, and another program weighing one and a half gigabytes cannot provide the same functionality that was in the 70MB version. These examples, of course, special cases and most other programs do not suffer from such obvious disadvantages. But the tendency of using resources by programs is wasted. But the speed of modern computers are no longer growing as before, the “megahertz race” has long ended. And nothing revolutionary on the horizon is visible: an increase in the number of cores so far gives an increase not in all applications, and the frequencies have already stopped for several years in the area of ​​the magic number “3”. So when will the real "general program optimization" begin? I have a strong feeling that if the programs were optimized, as before, they would not just fly now, they would overcome the pull of the Earth. :) And the main focus is on design, usability and integration with the Internet. Programs like Winamp, Nero and Word have been providing essentially unchanged functionality for many years. Why pay for it with computer resources?
In my understanding, quad-core home computers are now needed only for 3D modeling, video transcoding and some games (greetings to GTA 4). It turned out not. Software makers are preparing us like this: get ready that the next version will work “especially well” on quad core.
PS Do not ask why cited so few examples. I do not use a huge number of programs not related to work . When converting enough fingers of two hands. Why do not I use other programs similar in functionality? In winamp, the library is well tuned, and it is much more convenient for me to use it than, for example, foobar 2000. And Nero 6, as I mentioned, is completely fine with me, as I will replace the drive with satashny, of course, I will have to change the program used. But you yourself can give examples of such programs, there are a lot of them.
PPS There are also reverse examples, although I began to use them relatively recently, their speed and consumed resources hit me: BitTorrent, VMWare. A virtual machine was especially surprised - pressing a pause introduces Linux to sleep in a few (up to 5) seconds, and the speed of work in Linux itself is excellent. Of course, the virtual machine consumes enough resources, but the fact that Amarok inside the virtual machine works no worse than Winamp in Windows is surprising.
PPPS All this concerns only Windows XP. I can't say anything about whist.
UPD: For publicity. ) Many advised to try AIMP2. Download, try. Excellent program, the basic configuration already includes support for .cue and .flac files. No need to change anything for the correct display of Russian fonts. In memory, it takes 6-8 MB, the processor loads on a fraction of a percent. In no, no demand does not climb. In short, I recommend.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/53852/
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