Greetings from Bigfoot Networks!
First, I wanted to thank XMS and the Overclock3d team for completing our first UK review of the Killer NIC. We thought it was a fair, concise, and constructive piece of work; and greatly appreciate the effort that went into writing it.
As a Bigfoot employee that works closely with all departments in our company, I thought I'd jump on and respond to a few of the comments we've seen, as well as make myself available for any questions you all may have about the Killer.
I guess we can start with some of the comments by Equk
:
Playing on dumb users? Actually, users such as yourself are generally our target market...tech savvy, understand innovation, appreciate off-loading, etc.
1. Have you ever tried gaming while downloading bit torrents? The entire reason we wrote FN Torrent was to allow gamers to use their computer for more than just one thing at a time. I ask you to load up your favorite torrent program with 40 torrents and try to play your favorite game....if all of them are running / seeding, you'll probably have a tough time getting a kill. In reality, the QoS built into the card will always prioritize your gaming (UDP) packets both inbound and outbound, so any download will not interfere with your gaming.
2. True, if you exceed the bandwidth allotted by your ISP, it certainly would slow down the network. Our FN Torrent has a configurable bandwidth throttle to help prevent this from happening.
3. If by gain nothing, you mean giving yourself the ability to download torrents while gaming using zero host CPU resources, then you are correct. I don't really understand the 'limit yoursself to USB storage' comment, the same SATA hard drive in your computer can be placed into a USB drive case...or there are affordable stand-alone USB storage solutions out there.
Yes! You are correct, and that is what we find very exciting about the Killer NIC and it's Flexible Network Applications (FNA). With the Killer, you now have another (Linux) computer inside of your computer. Any Linux application can be ported to run on the Killer instead of your host CPU. Again, the idea is to free up CPU horsepower to run your games. We think that is 'merely' incredible, and an industry first.
Which source code are you looking for? Our SDK / source is on our installation disk, I'm happy to link up the large download for it if anyone would like it.
At the end of the day, Kempez did sum it up best. This is server-class NIC technology, refined and reduced in cost for gamer consumers. It is built to combat lag, and to provide the smoothest game play possible on your computer. FNApps will continue to be released, both by Bigfoot and by open source developers, so the card continues to gain value over time. We don't know many pieces of hardware that can make that claim.
Again, we appreciate the time that Overclock3D and it's users have spent evaluating the Killer. I will monitor this thread and am happy to answer any questions you all may have.
First, I wanted to thank XMS and the Overclock3d team for completing our first UK review of the Killer NIC. We thought it was a fair, concise, and constructive piece of work; and greatly appreciate the effort that went into writing it.
As a Bigfoot employee that works closely with all departments in our company, I thought I'd jump on and respond to a few of the comments we've seen, as well as make myself available for any questions you all may have about the Killer.
I guess we can start with some of the comments by Equk
:name='equk' said:
Playing on dumb users? Actually, users such as yourself are generally our target market...tech savvy, understand innovation, appreciate off-loading, etc.
name='equk' said:1. Who's computer grinds to a halt when downloading
2. It might not slow down the computer but it will slow down the network
3. You gain nothing from using it and instead are limiting youself to the USB storage
1. Have you ever tried gaming while downloading bit torrents? The entire reason we wrote FN Torrent was to allow gamers to use their computer for more than just one thing at a time. I ask you to load up your favorite torrent program with 40 torrents and try to play your favorite game....if all of them are running / seeding, you'll probably have a tough time getting a kill. In reality, the QoS built into the card will always prioritize your gaming (UDP) packets both inbound and outbound, so any download will not interfere with your gaming.
2. True, if you exceed the bandwidth allotted by your ISP, it certainly would slow down the network. Our FN Torrent has a configurable bandwidth throttle to help prevent this from happening.
3. If by gain nothing, you mean giving yourself the ability to download torrents while gaming using zero host CPU resources, then you are correct. I don't really understand the 'limit yoursself to USB storage' comment, the same SATA hard drive in your computer can be placed into a USB drive case...or there are affordable stand-alone USB storage solutions out there.
name='equk' said:A lot of 'their' apps are merely versions of scripts/apps that have been around on linux routers and systems for years.
"FN Firewall" - IPTables firewall
"PingThrottle™" - IPTables network throttling
Yes! You are correct, and that is what we find very exciting about the Killer NIC and it's Flexible Network Applications (FNA). With the Killer, you now have another (Linux) computer inside of your computer. Any Linux application can be ported to run on the Killer instead of your host CPU. Again, the idea is to free up CPU horsepower to run your games. We think that is 'merely' incredible, and an industry first.
name='equk' said:Where is the source codecan't see it on their website.
Which source code are you looking for? Our SDK / source is on our installation disk, I'm happy to link up the large download for it if anyone would like it.
At the end of the day, Kempez did sum it up best. This is server-class NIC technology, refined and reduced in cost for gamer consumers. It is built to combat lag, and to provide the smoothest game play possible on your computer. FNApps will continue to be released, both by Bigfoot and by open source developers, so the card continues to gain value over time. We don't know many pieces of hardware that can make that claim.
Again, we appreciate the time that Overclock3D and it's users have spent evaluating the Killer. I will monitor this thread and am happy to answer any questions you all may have.
guess dave was a 1post wonder 
