However, the Oracle guy (RobertD) is right. The feature DOES do something. It disables write cache flushing. This will especially show up on databases. In a benchmark, it would be reflected in a higher IOPS count.

Daniel Vogel is probably also right, for the reason this feature is evil. Disabling all write flushing also means that when NTFS needs to make sure something is written to disk or else, it can’t. That can lead to corruption.

If you need the speed, buy a RAID controller with on-board battery.

This is going to seem irrelevant but if you hear me out I think you will find that it isn’t. When going through the tutorial, you are encouraged to roll and then choose from the options that pop up. For example “Two 5s: 100 Points”. At first I thought you could only ever choose exactly one of the popped up options and were then required to roll again or bank. As I played more I found that I could choose multiple popped up options if I wanted to, as long as they didn’t “overlap” dice. For me it was an “Oh I’m just an idiot” moment.

Anyway I think it’s natural not to watch the computer like a hawk, but I noticed that the computer did, in fact, seem to have overall better luck than me, despite my having good confidence in my strategy. Then I started watching very carefully and I noticed that the computer would frequently roll “Two 1s: 200″ or “Two 5s: 100″, yet only one of the two dice would become “locked” in place.

I flipped out. I started noticing it happening all the time and filed a bug report. It turns out that it is not a bug because the player can do so as well by individually clicking on the dice along the left. Something that was NOT addressed — let alone clearly explained — anywhere in the tutorial nor the rules.

Furthermore it is, as I see it, a huge advantage to be aware of this option, as choosing one five instead of two fives can vastly improve your chances of avoiding a zilch.

So if I did have constructive criticism to give, I would say that the tutorial and the instructions need to be clearer. Something that would be VERY easy to do and wouldn’t change the game at all.

Without having the advantage of making the best choices (and probably never noticing that the computer players are exercising options that we aren’t), it would explain why the game seems unfair, or favoring the computer.

My second point that I want to make is that I never received a response to my bug report, so I started looking around the sites more. I found the explanation about “Why the computer player sometimes only chooses one die.” This note by the game author explained everything in what I viewed to be a tone that implied we should have known all along, ending with “Please stop sending bug reports about it.”

Obviously if so many reports are being sent, all of these complainers did not understand the rules of the game, so I think the appropriate response would be to explain the rules better in the game instead of making an otherwise unnoticeable link to an explanation somewhere at the bottom of the game description.

The developer’s reaction left a bad enough taste in my mouth to write this long post about it. So, there you have it — perhaps the game just seems so unfair because we’re not informed enough to play with a good strategy!

Details will be posted at urbansquall.com when we have more information about it.

For example, there used to be a substantial cost to stamp, package, ship, and sell a CD at retail. However, we now have limitless digital copies that are “good enough” quality for the masses available off iTunes; scarcity isn’t the issue, but what people value things at. Similarly, a boxed copy of software can be distributed online with all the data on the disc, the CD keys, and the manuals for quite a bit less than the retail (but sometimes costs more — an aberration I don’t entirely get).

That said, I still stay away from torrents. There’s no way downloading stuff off of a sketchy website can be a good idea in the long run.

Please read the source article. There are specific programs that will be sped up because they take advantage of the Windows bug this check box toggles.

Maybe the internet’s opinion has changed in the year since I’ve written this article, but originally this check box was being touted as a “Vista tweak” by every performance enhancement guide around. My intent with this article was to reverse those feelings by showing people the truth behind the check box.

If you think this feature is going to increase the average user’s average Windows speed, it isn’t.