Brad's Impulse Launch Review

Tuesday, June 17, 2008 by Frogboy | Discussion: Personal Computing

Impulse is the greatest thing since sliced bread...yada yada yada.

But how good is it really? Ultimately, only you will be able to decide.  What I'm going to do here is give my personal opinion on how Impulse stands on the eve of its launch.

The Comparisons

Let's just get this out of the way, Impulse is not Steam or Direct2Drive or Xfire or whatever.  It's has a very different design philosophy.  So let me just say this: You would have to pry Steam out of my cold dead hands.  You should judge Impulse as how well it addresses your problems.

First Impressions

image

So I double click on the Impulse icon.  How fast does it load?  On my ThinkPad T60 it's about 5 seconds but YMMV.  In its phase 2 edition (August) I think we need to make it more multithreaded so that when you launch it, it comes up like a window. I.e. instantly.  But it is pretty snappy (a lot faster for me than the betas were).

My next question would be, how much RAM is this thing using?

image

On load up, about 15 megabytes which is pretty good given that Internet Explorer uses 84 megabytes! 

The Store

From a digital e-commerce point of view, the million dollar question is, how good is the selection in the Impulse store?  With Steam or Direct2Drive, I can get a gazillion different games.  So what about Impulse? The answer depends on what you're looking for. 

The first week of the Impulse launch will be spent handling the logistics of getting hundreds of gigabytes of games, utilities, and applications up on the servers. So what is available at say 1pm on the day of the launch will be different from what is available at 5pm of the same day with each day adding more and more stuff.

imageBut by Christmas, I suspect it won't be selection that makes one choose one digital store over another but rather the features and services that these things provide.  Impulse, for instance, supports refunds for users having technical issues. That's a pretty big deal IMO. As far as I know, that will be unique to Impulse.

Community Features

So that we're all on the same page, Impulse isn't just a download manager ala Stardock Central.  It is a full blown digital distribution platform.  The platform comes in the form of Impulse Reactor which is a server-side virtual API set for developers.

A developer could, for instance, using the free Impulse Reactor SDK (which will be launched in mid August) type into their game: CVP.SaveGame() and save their game to the player's virtual drive.  Or CVP.LoadPreferences() to get a game's preferences.

The first game to make use of the Common Virtual Platform will be The Political Machine.  Unfortunately, The Political Machine v1.1 wasn't ready by the Impulse launch so we had to hide the "Games" button from the community area for multiplayer match making.  As soon as it's ready, the button will come back and players will be able to find games either there or within The Political Machine itself.  Other games that will be using it include Sins of a Solar Empire, Galactic Civilizations II v2.0, and Demigod.  We are also working with a number of third party developers to begin using this.

Blogging

I am very biased in favor of non-website whenever possible. I just find website stuff slow. 

The blogging and forum behavior on Impulse is pretty fast but I'd like to see it much faster.  As in, instantaneous.

I think in the coming weeks you'll see a lot of improvements to performance across the whole thing as the initial launch was largely about just getting stuff in there.

My Friends

image The friends stuff is a pretty big deal for me as both a user and as a gamer.  It's only in its beginning stages really.  Eventually, you'll be able to easily get games going and filter by friends or friends of friends to help improve the multiplayer experience.

When I play on-line, my biggest gripe is the griefing and such I run into.  I'm 36 years old, I just don't have time to waste in a multiplayer game with some 15 year old whose out to "max their ranking".

Features that didn't make to the launch that make me sad

There are 3 big features that had to be put into phase 2 (August) that make me sad. The Impulse side was done but we just didn't have enough time on the game side to make use of them yet.

Those are:

  1. Multiplayer Matchmaking.  People could start and join games right from Impulse.
  2. Achievements.
  3. Game Rankings.

They'll get in there, we just have to update The Political Machine and other games to make use of them so that we can show off what's possible to game developers.

The same is true for NAT negotiation and such.  One of the biggest pains in the butt on the PC is getting ports and firewalls set up right for a game. In Impulse phase 3, the Impulse back end will be set up to act as a kind of back-up for games that use our platform.  So a user could connect to another user without knowing anything about routers and what not.  We're hoping Demigod will be the first game to make use of this.

Getting Updates

image So right now, there's a tab called "Updates" that shows up if there are updates to ones programs.  I'd like to see an option put in asap that simply has Impulse download these updates automatically.

My other request is that when downloading updates, I want to see my actual bandwidth speed. I realize this is cosmetic but somewhere, techies should be able to get some idea of how fast their connections are.

Getting to my stuff

imageImpulse lets users add new categories to  their applications and move things around via the dock (we'll talk about that more soon).

If there's an update, an exclamation point shows up next to it.

What's not in the launch version are forums for every application or a chat channel. Eventually everything will get its own forum and chat channel.

Registering your stuff

image Users can associate various programs with their account.  Right now, the only commercial programs that you can associate with your account are Stardock ones and programs you bought from Impulse. But the next step is to let you be able to associate any program with your account regardless of where you purchased it.

This way, when are setting up a new machine, you can just let Impulse download and install all your stuff (freeware, shareware, games, whatever).

Preferences

image Clicking on the orb in the top left opens up additional options.  You can set up where things install on a per category basis:

image

The Dock

Impulse is designed to customizeable.  The initial launch doesn't have the skinning selection features in. That's coming "real soon now(TM)". But you can add and edit your own categories:

image 
Extending Impulse

When you press the minimize to dock, Impulse launches the dock:

image
Impulse Dock

The dock displays the same content as the Impulse client. By default, it is set to auto-hide so it will hide to the taskbar edge with the user able to bring it up by moving their mouse to the bottom edge of the screen.

The dock is pretty powerful and yet light weight.

We plan to release later on an Impulse Tray applet that users can optionally use to stay in touch with friends, posts, updates, etc.  It will not be part of Impulse itself as it will be designed to be as tiny as possible. 

So what's next?

I think most people will find Impulse pretty compelling. Initially, its game content is not on par with Steam or Direct2Drive but that should change over time.  Obviously on the non-game software side, it enjoys a tremendous advantage. 

Impulse itself is pretty snappy but I found the forums and blog services be a bit on the slow side. This will be something Stardock will need to improve.

Download speeds of new programs, by contrast are fast. Faster than anything I've ever used anywhere.

The customization features, while decent, could be a lot better. I.e. I'd like to be able to select from a list of skins.  Stardock's the leader in this area so it's something that it will be adding and supporting through its skinning site, WinCustomize.com.

It will be important that Impulse show off the features of Impulse Reactor as quickly as possible.  Getting the Multiplayer matchmaking in should be up by the end of the month.  Achievements, rankings, etc. are all going to be crucial as well.

I'd like to be able to filter out programs that are available but not installed. I'm an extreme case since I have a ton of things linked to my account but still.

I think people will be pleasantly surprised at how fast and memory efficient the overall program is.  Given how pretty it is, on might expect it to be slow and a memory hog but even in its first release, it's really snappy.

First Previous Page 2 of 7 Next Last
ZJBDragon
Reply #21 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 10:45 AM
Wait a minute, do you have to manually register and associate programs with Impulse or does it to an initial scan? Manually registering and associating programs with Impulse one-by-one would be time consuming on the initial install or if something should happen to your system (such as hard drive failure) or you change computers. This is something that, if not already addressed, might need some attention.

I'm kind of with Mumblefratz here, but I will sometimes let useful software run or start it up as long as it doesn't start itself up. 15mb is acceptable. I'm still running a single core CPU so resources are very important to me especially with all the other stuff I have to run for various reasons. My biggest issue with Impulse, however, is that I haven't figured out why I would 'want' this yet. I have blog/journal sites, communities with friends, forums, and messaging services. There are dozens of those things out there and I only use 1 right now (I used to use 2, but it was too much to keep track of). I'm sure other people will 'want' this, but I hope there aren't plans to force Impulse upon people. I can understand why you'd want to do that, but like Windows Live and EA Downloader, it'll get bah-leted (deletion for 'invasive' programs) immediately after install if I wasn't able to un-select it.

This is just my opinion. I'm a hard sale because it's very hard to get me to 'want' things especially when something else is already fulfilling a 'want'.
PuterDudeJim
Reply #22 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 10:45 AM
Let's see if I get this right. This thing will be able to update my Photoshop CS3? I am excited about the dock!!!   
zakai1369
Reply #23 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 10:48 AM
no one thing is all things to all people.


Aw man! Does that mean you won't be putting out customized, cut down, chopped up versions to suit the needs of each individual user? Sheesh! What a crock.



I don't really see where anyone has a reason to complain about the different sections of the platform. I myself do not play games and don't use ThinkDesk, Multiplicity, or any of the other tools. So far I just stick to the customization stuff. Also I have purchased everything I have seen from Stardock so far that I had an interest in purchasing.

But you know how I'll deal with that?

I'll start Impulse up and I won't click on those tabs I don't want to see unless I decide I have an interest in looking into them.

It isn't like it is some huge resource hogging program that you are required to leave running 24/7. Open it when you have a use for it and close it when you're done. Problem solved.


zakai1369
Reply #24 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 10:51 AM
Damn phone calls! I guess if I had refreshed the page before typing I could've just said
"Yeah what Zoomba said"
ZubaZ
Reply #25 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 10:53 AM
If Impulse didn't remember my last tab open on close then I might be more concerned about the presentation of the store . . but it seems more like an opt-in after the initial load.   I'm cool wiht that.
Frogboy
Reply #26 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 10:58 AM

PuterDudeJim
Let's see if I get this right. This thing will be able to update my Photoshop CS3? I am excited about the dock!!!   

Impulse can only update programs in which the publisher of the program has granted permission to do so.  We obviously can't update Photoshop or any other program unless the developer of the program has provided a) the files and the serial numbers of existing users.

Anything purchased from Stardock, TotalGaming.net, WinCustomize, or Impulse will be recognized automatically.  Similarly, any Stardock programs, regardless of where purchased, will be recognized.

Over time, the goal will be to work with publishers to let users update their software regardless of where they purchased them.

CobraA1
Reply #27 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 11:01 AM
Wait a minute, do you have to manually register and associate programs with Impulse or does it to an initial scan?


I believe it does both. It detected all of my SDC installed games automatically.

but I hope there aren't plans to force Impulse upon people.


There aren't.
Mumblefratz
Reply #28 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 11:17 AM
That's like saying iTunes is adware.

It isn't? To me it is. I don't own a cell phone and I'm quite proud of the fact. In fact I intend to have "Never owned a cell phone" etched on my gravestone for future generations to marvel at.

I know, I know.

We've had this conversation before and I understand that some people want this for reasons that are truly beyond my ability to comprehend.

I understand that I'm on the losing side of this discussion however I simply couldn't resist a final dig.

My objection is simply that you're asking me to use a rocketship with all it's necessary complexity to do a single use task that for me is as simple as walking to my mailbox to get the mail.

In our previous discussion you assumed that I wanted it both ways. You said something to the effect that I wanted the "convenience" of modern day digital distribution and the simplicity of a bygone era. In fact I don't want it both ways. You can keep the convenience of modern day digital distribution, I'll trade it all for simplicity and understandability.

Command line (DOS) was fine.

Now you're finally making sense.

Actually I don't quite go this far, however I've seen no real productivity benefit in any so called OS improvements since the days of Windows for Workgroups 3.11.
Zoomba
Reply #29 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 11:28 AM

Impulse should automatically pick up apps you installed via Stardock Central, or other Stardock products.  When you purchase new though, it should automatically be associated with your account and be managed entirely in the background.

ZubaZ
Reply #30 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 11:34 AM

Actually I don't quite go this far, however I've seen no real productivity benefit in any so called OS improvements since the days of Windows for Workgroups 3.11.
I agree with this part . . but life isn't always about just productivity. 

Wizard1956
Reply #31 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 11:47 AM
I didn't think I needed or wanted SDC when I first bought WB's as a stand alone.Hell,I didn't even know what it was.Then,when I had to actually use it for updates,I looked at it and said some of the same things to my self.(Bloated,slow,confusing,buggy)I couldn't access the forums,and downloading skins with it was a disaster..Then Impulse came out just before I upgraded to ODNT Ultimate.It has everything I want,some things I wish I had and some I have no interest in.At least I don't get lost sorting through them.All in a neat,well though out layout.R.I.P.SDC
Wizard1956
Reply #32 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 11:56 AM
My objection is simply that you're asking me to use a rocketship with all it's necessary complexity to do a single use task that for me is as simple as walking to my mailbox to get the mail.


To follow this line of thinking:My car has 4 doors,I only use 1,therefore it's bloated by those extra 3 doors.It's also painted,all it needs to prevent rust is primer.I only use "D" and "R" on the shifter,more bloat.The rear windows that go up and down,useless to me.It has the name/logo on the trunk,floor-mats,grill,hubcaps,dashboard,etc.ADWARE!!! Why can't they make a decent one door sedan,4-windowed,2 speed,plain and unmarked for me?
Mumblefratz
Reply #33 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 12:15 PM
Why can't they make a decent one door sedan,4-windowed,2 speed,plain and unmarked for me?

I've plainly stated that I'm not asking for any special consideration and that I understand that other folks want this.

For my part I prefer to forgo Galciv2 updates rather than install what I consider bloatware and that is what in fact I will do.

I'm not quite sure precisely why you feel my stance is worthy of abuse but clearly you do.

As to cars, I actually prefer 4 doors and obviously have no choice with manufacturer’s labels and logos, however I refuse to pay interest so always pay cash and similarly refuse to purchase any car with dealer advertising, logos or license plate holders. If one dealer objects then the next one down the street will be more than happy to accept my cash.

You can't deny someone the option of voting with their feet. To do so is as silly as your "reductio ad absurdum" argument.
CTB123
Reply #34 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 12:24 PM
The options for a developer using the virtual drive via the SDK to store save games, preferences and etc is interesting. I hope a local version of those would be stored as well for times when the server is unavailable due to upgrades, Internet problems and etc.
rightwingtroll
Reply #35 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 1:48 PM

Impulse looks nice so far (posting from it now.) Just waiting for it to accept my Political Machine 2008 serial - says expired

Ranbir
Reply #36 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 2:03 PM

What I would like from Stardock is support for greater payment options. For example, I am from the UK and I use a Switch/Maestro card.

Nakor
Reply #37 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 3:24 PM

rightwingtroll, you should be sorted now if you restart Impulse.

WIllythemailboy
Reply #38 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 4:45 PM
Mumble - I'm with you on the whole cell phone thing. I'm probably a lot younger, too - and I still refuse to get one.

OTOH, I think your stance on SDC is somewhat flawed. Nothing is stopping you from installing, updating what you will, then uninstalling. Repeat at whatever interval you feel necessary. No, it's not the same as downloading a stand-alone patch, but you've minimalist-ed you way to lower potential. To each his own, I guess.

That being said, all I ever use SDC for is updating, and that's likely all I'll ever use Impulse for too.
UEF Soldier
Reply #39 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 5:02 PM

for me, Impulse is using up 50megs right now on my lappy, and 146megs on my gaming rig.

Neilo
Reply #40 Tuesday, June 17, 2008 7:08 PM
Thanks for the info Brad.

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