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 7 of 7 Next Last
ZubaZ
Reply #121 Sunday, June 22, 2008 7:25 PM
This is a personal attack specifically directed at me long after I've withdrawn from the thread. This contains no reason as to why or why not you feel Impluse is good or bad but merely holds up someone's else's beliefs as something worthy of ridicule.

As such I can only assume your purpose is to specifically abuse another user, namely me. I feel such behaviour is worthy of being reported even if it does send emails to 20 stardockians and so that is what I shall do.
Mumble . .this is a long way from a personal attack.  If anything it's an attack on your belief . . and sticks and stones. 
Not responding to an implied or inferred or perceived slight is often the best way to diffuse a thread that doesn't interest you any more.

But for the record . . .

Zubaz puts on his moderator hat

Personal attacks are not allowed at Wincustomize.  Keep it clean everyone.

Zubaz takes off the hat
Mumblefratz
Reply #122 Monday, June 23, 2008 10:33 AM
Not responding to an implied or inferred or perceived slight is often the best way to diffuse a thread that doesn't interest you any more.

Mostly I do.

The issue seems to be that this Off Topic Forum is shared by a number of Stardock sites. You mention Wincustomize for one. I guess this is also shared by the Sins site and perhaps others of which I am not aware. This forum is also shared by the only site that I care about which is GalCiv2.

The issue is that the interests and needs of these various sites are different and different types of folks tend to go to these different sites. Frankly from what I've seen I would prefer to not associate with most of these folks.

In the future I will keep it in mind that the Off Topic Forum is shared among many whose interests I don't share and try to stay out of the forum entirely. However it would be nice if these individual and disparate sites could afford their own Off Topic Forums. Or at the least if there was some indication of a threads site of origin I could know which threads to ignore.

Actually the Off Topic Forum has been problematic with many divisive religious and political threads causing much grief. There has been a lot of support (at least within the Galciv2 community which admittedly is not as well attended these days as say the Sins site) for simply eliminating the Off Topic Forum from the list of recent posts so that people are not subjected to this but to date this has been unsuccessful. Oh well.
ZubaZ
Reply #123 Monday, June 23, 2008 11:00 AM
it would be nice if these individual and disparate sites could afford their own Off Topic Forums. Or at the least if there was some indication of a threads site of origin I could know which threads to ignore.
I find many of the most interesting discussions cross sites.  The internet is very good at insulating people to places where their opinion is almost always supported and they begin to think that the opinions are supported universally.  Mixing it up a bit provides an outsider view that can either prove your point or (if an open mind is kept) allow you to modify it.
Wizard1956
Reply #124 Monday, June 23, 2008 11:22 AM
Or at the least if there was some indication of a threads site of origin I could know which threads to ignore.


I'm not sure how that could be done,but it sounds like a good suggestion.Thanks for better explaining where you are coming from.I don't PC game(I'd get my tail kicked by some 10 year old ,lol)My interest lies in ODNT and WinCustomize.For me,Impulse is much,much more than a "necessary evil." You could say we are in the same universe,but completely different worlds.Please disregard my smart-assed remarks.Peace.
Mumblefratz
Reply #125 Monday, June 23, 2008 1:39 PM
For me, Impulse is much, much more than a "necessary evil." You could say we are in the same universe, but completely different worlds

This is pretty much what I was trying to say all along, although admittedly with some lack of communication skill on my part as well.

Every one has different priorities. Even among so called gamers. There is substantial difference between the RTS folks that are interested in Sins and the TBS folks interested in GalCiv2.

I've peeked in on the Sins site and that is so anathema to my disposition and interests that it's like a foreign country. The customization crowd is at least generally of my same generation but they have widely divergent interests from mine. I can understand why to someone that uses a lot of this *stuff*, Impulse is actually a simplification of your life and an organizational improvement. The gamers that play a lot of games would probably be in the same camp. Again to them they have a lot of games to update, they like to buy and peruse new titles and they have a need and use for most of its features.

I always understood the benefit from Stardock’s point of view. A unified distribution system whose development is amortized over all of their product line makes perfect sense. The low cost nature of their products means that distribution costs are a much higher percentage of total product cost and an optimized universal distribution mechanism is mandatory.

All I was ever saying was that this “one size fits all” model doesn’t fit *everybody* and that there are a limited set of folks like myself that have valid objections to being forced to use it. Again I fully understand and accept that Stardock can’t respond to every tiny minority of opinion and never expected them to. However to me it seemed that every time I tried to express my opinion people seemed to think that if they could only explain the benefits of Impulse to me more clearly or if they could explain that my objections were not really significant then I would suddenly see that it was something I both wanted and needed.

That is what I meant by denying my opinion. All I was looking for was someone to say OK I can see why someone with only one program that they care about might not be particularly interested in what is in effect a multi-program update/management/distribution system.

However I do consider comments to the effect that my stance implies that I an not technologically savvy and that why should I own a computer when I can simply ride my horse over to talk to my nearest neighbor or that my stance is so unreasonable that it’s likened to wanting car companies to design a line of one-door cars to accommodate my minority preferences as holding my opinions up to ridicule and therefore as personal abuse. I understand and try to be thick skinned (mostly) about such things but when you get that in response to your attempt at reasoned argument then sooner or later it begins to wear on you.

For my part the thing about the 4 most common lies was mainly an attempt at humor although the last one was skating a bit near the edge. However it wasn’t explicit and did require the dirty mind of the reader to interpret and make the connection. Such is the nature of an innuendo.

Anyway I appreciate the apology and for my part offer the same where I was unclear in my intent and explanations, and short tempered and snotty in some of my replies.

I find many of the most interesting discussions cross sites. The internet is very good at insulating people to places where their opinion is almost always supported and they begin to think that the opinions are supported universally. Mixing it up a bit provides an outsider view that can either prove your point or (if an open mind is kept) allow you to modify it.

Perhaps, but you seem in this case to be requiring me to be the one holding the open mind as the holder of the minority opinion as opposed to those that agree with you and the majority opinion. It becomes far less interesting when you're on the minority side and your arguments are consistently either misconstrued, ignored or subject to ridicule. An open mind is a two way street and in fact I believe one that is more important for the majority to have rather than the minority. After all it's so much easier to agree with the majority.
Daiwa
Reply #126 Monday, June 23, 2008 8:34 PM
Mumble -

I meant nothing personal, I was just very puzzled by your reasoning. I regret you took offense & extend my apologies. It's really a non-issue. The reasons you cite just don't appear to me to support your decision to avoid using it. Nevertheless, you should do what you are comfortable doing.

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