#Liquid Speed
32 messages in this thread
Hi Brian,
I'd like to ask you if there is a demo version of the Liquid Speed and the
price.
Thank you.
Alex K.
Alex,
Liquid Speed is one of those "see it to believe it" products. We want to make
it as easy as possible for you to give it a try. Rather than try to issue some
crippled or timed demo, we are offering you a no risk trial. If you don't think
it will pay for itself very quickly with use, we'll give you your money back.
There are actually people out there who don't use the 3D Editor and Keyframer.
We don't want to sell a product to you that doesn't bring any value.
I believe it is improper etiquette to post pricing on the forum. I'll E-Mail
the info to you. If you have questions, call Vibrant at 800-937-1711.
Best Regards, Brian
Brian
PMJI but I've been interested in Liquid Speed as well my only concern is that
with it's hardware dongle I'm now going to need to keep my printer on all the
time. I'm fortunate to have one of those I/O boards that doesn't require having
the printer on (or even connected) when running 3DS3. Is it likely that LS will
now require my printer be connected and on?
BTW I can't understand why the dongle was thought to be neccesary to
begin with, it can only be used with 3DS and we are all very honest people.
Well… honest when it comes to $300 programs versus $3000 programs<g>
Nick
PMJI, Nicholas, but my 3DS/LS dongle set-up works fine whether the printer is
on or not…
FWIW,
-Alan Iglesias
One of our goals in moving to a "dongled" product is to offer real
time updates via modem to our customers. This methodology reduces
the time it takes a customer to get his update (and often to get
productive) and reduces our costs. We are free to place copies of
our programs on our BBS, Compuserve, etc. without the fear of giving
away valuable software.
Liquid Speed is an evolutionary (and revolutionary) product. It's
ability to accelerate is only limited by the amount of time we put
into it. It is going to get better over time, and it is in our best
interest to make it easily upgradable. This is one of the reasons
for the feature key (dongle).
<<with [Liquid Speed's] hardware dongle, I'm now going to need to keep
my printer on all the time.>>
We were aware of the issues users have with feature keys when we made
the decision to use them. We are committed to doing whatever it
takes to eliminate any negative aspects of this strategy. We provide
a new parallel card to those users who experience problems with their
system. To date, we have had two reports of the hardware lock
requiring a printer to be on. We also offer extention cables for
those users who find themselves with several hardware locks.
<<…we are all very honest people.>>
Yes, you are. The hardware lock will only keep people "honest" in
those parts of the world where the culture and copy protection laws
don't discourage copying.
Comments from anyone reading this are welcome.
Hey Brian,
I posted you a message a week ago asking about a problem with my "new" Viper
and your inline driver. Diamond changed the VGA chipset in the Viper (some Oak
piece of …) and now you fail to detect the Viper. I'm not able to do
anything! When can expect an updated driver? Please, pretty please! <g>
Brian, PMJI..here but as a dealer I would request that you
automatically include the "extension" cable for all shipments…I
liked Greg's idea for doing a short ribbon type cable internally so
the locks are all velcroed up against the power supply and the
external port has a normal looking setup on the outside of the
computer…that way noone knocks off the dongles that really put too
much strain on the connection to begin with….currently some of my
clients have 3 and 4 dongles already on their editing computers and
this situation is getting out of hand. The only way to protect the
connection in to go inside the box with ribbon cable setups….I feel
this should be supplied by Vibrant so as to enhance the reasons to
buy their product and solve a growing "dongle" problem. I see this
as a Win-Win Solution. For what it's worth…. BTW….Brian pleas
call me monday I've been meaning to get the product in and just
haven't gotten around to filling out the additional paperwork you so
graciously sent me when this product was first introduced. James M.
Murphy (414) 435-7345.
Do I understand correctly? A dongle for Liquid Speed? What are they NUTS!
Liquid speed is just a screen redraw utility. Thanks for this info, James. I
was planning to order it but with three dongles now that don't cooperate well
with my printer nor with each other I swore I wouldn't buy another software
package that 1. FU**s up my hard drive nor 2. has a dongle. I don't care if it
does page flips and realtime ADO effects it can rot in Chapter 7 as far as I'm
concerned. You can pass that along to all those that are considering a dongle
for their little utility of video driver or mesh file or texture map. It's as
silly as Macro vision!
Geezz Don…I "kind of" agree with you about the Dongle for liquid speed… I
guess that's why I told brian they should set up some sort of "internal"
option.
I really didn't consider the additional Hardware conflicts and hangups as I've
pretty much been like a bulldog when it comes to debuggin' these types of
things to the point of swaping out Bios chips Etc.
I do agree that these things should be plug and play and that sometimes they
aren't but I haven't really heard a lot of negative things about this software
so I assumed there wasn't really any problem with printers etc! Am I wrong
about this?
James M. Murphy
>> I assumed there wasn't really any problem with printers etc! Am I wrong
about this?
YES, You are wrong. There are numerous dongle conflicts. I have
three and two printers. The only dongle that seems to be inert, (on
my system), is the 3DSr3 dongle. But, others have experienced many
idiosyncracies with their printers and the 3DS dongle. Its not only
Dongles– I paid $400 for PRIME TIME character generator which
totally screwed up my harddrive and then self destructed. As a
registered owner, purchased the product from Innovision, they refused
to help me resolve this, said I would have to purchase another copy.
So, I now have a worthless piece of $400 software that won't run. I am
very bitter about that! I have TOPAS. It requires its dongle to
screw doggy style into 3DS dongle to work but then it causes my
printer to go berserk. It won't print at all but depending on what
icons I click on it sends paper feeds to the printer. Crystal
Graphics acknowledged this bug but only said they would work on it. I
have another dongle that won't work with the 3DS/Topas dongle and its
for mixed gas diving software. I have to remove the graphics dongles
to get to work.
I know you and I have similar political beliefs and will appreciate
this: I think software manufactures should take a stricter stand on
the duplication of their software for blackmarket sales and the
courts should levy swift and severe punishment for violators whether
or not they are "college hackers, meaning 'no' harm" or just plain
crooks. SPA should launch a public awareness TV campaign to educate
the public that making a copy of software for a friend is a felony.
I would like to see: (Maybe you'd care to comment)
SPA should develop a serial number standard and all software
automatically imbeds the registered owner's name adress and phone
number on a screen as a warning that the only person lawfully allowed
to use this software is eg. "abcd" The software must have the
proper name because it would self destruct if the owner didn't obtain
a special code to make the software permanent, That code would be
obtained within 30 days or so of installation from SPA and would be
tied to the name spelling of the owner. Once the code is imbedded the
owner would need his SSN# to reinstall. However, his name would
appear throughout the software.
Only a moron would want his name and SSN# to appear on bootlegged
copies. Yes, software could be bootlegged for 30 days or whatever
but then it would need to be reinstalled. New codes would be
required to reinstall from any corruption of the install requiring
backups. Even if the software was bootlegged for 30 days it would
be like a hook in advertising sucking potential customers to own
their own. Let's get rid of these darn dongles and institute a more
effective system. I for one, have decided not to purchase any more
software with them. Enough of this soapbox! James, you always get
me started! <G>
I agree that something must be done. Until then, however, another
idea is to set up a little switchbox for the dongles. Not pretty,
but cheap, and it works! Much easier to use than having to pop
dongles in and out and try to figure out which one to use for what,
and what must be unhooked for the printer to function! Just get a
1->4 parallel switchbox, and you should be set. It's not a cure to
the root problem, but it is a solution!
>>Just get a 1->4 parallel switchbox
Not enough! I once worked out the solution for my situation. It took
a 4x3x4 logic switcher. I have three dongles, two printers and two
cpu's. In addition I figured a dedicated hard drive for the software
that screwed up the sectors. No!, I shelved the software and use a
simple A/B parallel switch for the dongles and have two cables
hanging free and the 2-dongle set ready to plug in along with the
single mixed gas dongle. The secret to convenience was having the
DB25 pin jack located right by the monitor so I can work it like a
patch bay or old fashioned telephone switch board. It's OK but I
still feel silly having to go through this. I think I'd feel less
silly spraying my system with RAID to prevent those little
unexplained software extras that creep up, especially on 1.0
versions. <G>
Greg!
That's right I forgot about the switchbox bit….maybe you should market a
"Special" Dongle/switchbox..I don't think the Production cost would be too
much..lets see..go to SAM's buy the switchbox with the 6'cable bundled for
$19.95…print the decals on your Smart Label Printer Pro….Sell it for,
Say…$49.95…. The cable is $19.95 extra and shipping goes at $17.95…Ya'
that sounds about right. <g>
Murph'
Don, LS's dongle doesn't have any problems with printers on the
systems I've tested it on. At work we have about 5 dongles on one
machine (a Compaq DP/M) with no problems at all. One is 3DS/LS/Soft
Engine 3.0/ and 2 for Micro Cadam. We hook many different printers
through these including a LJ 4, Design Jet 650C and a Compaq Pagemarq
20. ALl with no problem. I also have the 3DS and LS dongle on my
system (Gateway 2000 4/66) with a LJ IIIP with no problems. Just
thought I'd let ya know. LS is every bit worth the dongle.
I'm happy for you that you are proud of having a bug free system with
respect to the dongles. I never had a problem either when I just had
the single dongle, but when I got the one for mixed gas it wouldn't
cooperate with the 3DS dongle and when I got the Topas dongle I
started to have printer problems with dongles hooked up. These
incompatibilities were acknowledged by the respective software
companies. You do seem happy with your large family of dongles but
what will you do when ALL software companies elect to go the dongle
route. Count them! ie the numbers of software exe's on your drive.
10?, 25?, 100?
What if dongles seem to be so widely accepted by software developers
that texture mapmakers and clipart makers start using them. I'm
waiting for PKware to adopt them. The proliferation of adding the
dongle to software accessories is growing like a virus in our
software. Also the price of adding these is coming down as the
volume of production is going up. However, the inconvenience of
stacking these things is becoming a potential for limiting the
usefulness, productivity, and versatility of modern PC's. I think
you and others who vote for the dongle train are not realizing the
near future disaster this will ultimately bring to our computers. The
current attitude of dongle makers is "I couldn't care less about the
other guy's dongle, we know our dongle works"
David, there are many advancements in the computer technology that
enhance the value of our systems. I see dongles as a detriment to
the efficiency and growth of the industry.
One way to "solve" the problem is to foster the notion that it's unacceptable
to copy / use / borrow / test-drive-for- just-this-one-job any software that
your friend happens to have. Software producers are forced to view customers in
two ways: one as people they're trying to help, second as people who might rip
off their efforts. If there was a perfectly easy, perfectly flexible method of
protecting software, it would be built-in to every PC today. But there isn't,
and there may never be, so dongles (in various forms) will continue to exist.
I think it would be much more productive to exert effort thinking of better
(read: less intrusive) dongles.
Don-L,
>> YES, You are wrong. <<
Wellll….Shoot! There goes my perfect record…first time this year and it's
Dec. 12th….So it Goes. <g>
I guess I've been lucky as the only software we use here to date with a dongle
is 3D Studio and I've had no problems on any of our machines caused by the
dongle.
Also I've several clients that have Rio and Inscriber dongles on their machines
with the 3D Studio dongle and have experienced no problems.
Geezz Don…."What's the matter with you?"….<BG>
Seriously I agree that your dongle forcast looks a tad bleak for those of us
that have to deal with multiple Graphics packages and multiple dongles. Know
What! I'll Bet those companies who dongles cause the most trouble will either
drop em' or fix the problems as this market is getting way too competitive to
have anyones product….be it dongled or not…cause problems for the end user
that go unaddressed for too long.
Just by your posting of the incident with "PRIME TIME" I'm sure I'll never
consider that package and quite possibly many others will shy away from it too
as a result or your reporting of their inability to react to what surely must
be a legitimate end user problem.
"Screwed up hard drives" is why I never considered loading Stacker or any other
of those type of Software doubling packages..even though I've been given
several free copies as a dealer. I just don't need the aggravation. Also my
time is too valuable to debug someone elses hardware & software
problems…..Hell I've been given free CAD and SOLIDS Modeling Programs who's
value run in to the thousands of dollars and some of them never made it on any
of our machines just because of reports such as yours….We're a very small
company and although I would like to support additional products relating to
graphics there is just so much time in a day that can be allocated to testing
new products.
I also agree with you about the illegal duplication and SPA…I have absolutly
no Patience or Pity for anyone Busting someones copyright…and that includes
the so called "college hackers"…there is no such thing as..NO Harm…!!!
When I had the AutoCAD Dealership.(we are now 100% 3D Studio MM Only)..I could
never figure out why so many companies in the Green Bay Wisconsin Area were
running Illeagal copies of AutoCAD and why it was so hard to get them to go
legal…I actually lost several accounts because I insisted that they get
legal! Then I found out that the Green Bay Technical College was Running 20
Busted Copies of AutoCAD and that the school actually insisted it was their
right to copy because they were "and educational institution and using it for
training"…By the way…I found this out after Autodesk was made aware of it
and had resolved the problem.
My point is…most of the clients I was haveing trouble with had people taking
training at that school and it didn't take a genious to figure out that if the
students saw the school busting the copyright and getting away with it..Well!
Don-L,
Continued from before.
Well!
That really pissed me off! Because the Green Bay Technical School should have
know better….and they were not providing any "Service to the Business
community by indirectly promoting copyright busting on 20 each.. $3,000.+
copies of software. Actually I think they got off way too easy as they only
had to buy at educational pricing…they should have been made to purchase at
full retail or lost their licenses alltogether..they are not an authorized ATC
like the Appleton college and Green Bay's instructors are not consistant as far
as who and what is being taught at any given month in the Autocad
classes…this I can report because I've had several clients attend the classes
and tell me that I showed em' more in 4 hours than they learned in 4 weeks at
the GreenBay Tech. Center. If I ever find out who reported the Green Bay Tech.
College..I'm taking him or (her)..hint..hint out to dinner for Steak and
Lobster then I'm Buying them a case of Martini and Rossi for the hell of it.<g>
The whole damn thing is…most of these people lack a certain sense of
responsiblilty…I think that in general most people think they themselves are
honest but when it comes to software they take the "liberal point of view" That
is….if you remember Phil Oaks description of what a liberal is…."10 degrees
to the right of center on most things"—"10 degrees to the left if it affects
them personally".
Enough of that Bandwagon…Geeezz Don Why the hell did you have to mention
those damn copyright busters…they really piss me off!
Maybe we should discuss something less volitile like Religion or Politics. <BG>
Murph'
Well, you see? Your Green Bay TS is the very reason we have problems. The
attitude that Oh well I'll just run off 50,000 dollers worth of software theft
and if I get caught? What will they do to me. Take my one license away?
Confiscate my illegal copies? Or will I end up in prison for 50 years, doing
hard labor? As you said the outcome was it's OK to bootleg software as long as
you don't get caught and if you do get caught the worst is you'll have to pay
for the retail cost of the software anyway. You're right the GBTS was teaching
their students that bootlegging is academically acceptable. You know what,
Murph? It's not just GBTS. Its happening all over.
Don,
Actually it's more like $75,000.00 dollars worth of software theft.
They _used_ to call that Grand Larceny, but now it's not even backpage
news…Hell 10 years ago someone would have at least got fired! From what I
can gather over the whole affair the school Pres. was really upset that it put
his BUDGET off for the year…Whatta Guy! He's probably mad at Autodesk for
catching Em'. <g>
And what really ticks me off is that they really got away with it!
No fine…Nobody did any hard time..They weren't even worried that Autodesk was
gonna take away their ability to "teach AutoCad" Allbeit in a poor fashion. My
brother-in-laws kid took 6 weeks at the Green Bay Campus and I had to explain
to him what the Cartesian Coordinate System was last week end…He still
couldn't draw a box to scale using polar cooridantes…Great Job Green Bay
Tech!
What really get's me is that the local businesses in town took this as license
to do the same thing because what's gonna happen?….If on the slight chance
that someone actually does report them they can stonewall it until the last
minuet and just settle for paying what they SHOULD HAVE PAID for the program in
the first place!
If more Dealers could get List for their products we could afford to support
our clients as well as they expect us too and that's usually as well as we have
to any way to keep the business…. except that a lot of dealers never make it
over the hump due to this type of foolishness and then who's the first one to
complain that thier "AutoCAD Dealer" went out of business..You guessed it…the
asshole with 4 or 5 illeagal copies in his engineering department!!!
Damn this pisses me off.
Actually Don I've revised my position on Dongles due to this
conversation…..I'm Really glad Autodesk put on the Dongle for the 3D Studio
Product…I really don't beleive you can trust people not to abuse the
copyright given my past 5 years experience as an Autodesk AutoCAD Dealer.
If fact I've got a great idea for the Yosters….write in to the code a worm
virus that activates anytime someone tries to use one of those frig'gan rtPATCH
routines….you know those ideots actually sent a mailing to our Dealership!!!
What Balls! Since I got _that_ crap in the mail I've been trying to think of
an appropriate response to their mailing to our dealership….maybe having Gary
write a worm routine that totally destroys their hard drive and quitely slip it
in to the code on the next revision would be the most FUN! <BG>
Gary!!! Are Ya There! Comon' big guy "Do unto others, _first_ for a change!
Now lets talk about people that bought mail order that want you to _discount_
their Release 2.0 upgrade for Em' <g>
Shhhhhuuuure "When Monkeys Fly oughta my Butt!"
Murph'
PMJI, I have Liq. speed and love it, the dongle has never benn a
problem, I do wonder if one day my computer will have to be six feet
from the wall ?
A 3 foot extension cable costs about $3.50 and all those
worries about stressed connectors and not enough space behind the
computer are taken care of. And printer problems? I don't have an
answer for that one but at least I've never had a problem myself.
Brian
Thanks for the response.
<<.. offer real time updates via modem to our customers.>> my thoughts on that
are it might have been a good idea to poll potential users on this forum as to
whether or not the pros of the dongle (ease of updates, etc) outweighted the
cons. The dongle apparently and understandably turns off some users.
I for one am weighing whether or not I want another dongle on my
system. Also by buying your product I encourage other software vendors who are
considering using it to go ahead and do it. My money is voting for it's
continuance.
>> My money is voting for it's continuance.
Does that mean You would rather have the proliferation of the dongle
train? Short term gain- Long term pain. Short term pain- Long term
gain. Dongle train- long term pain Make your choice.
Don
>>Does that mean you would rather have the proliferation of the dongle train<<
Absolutely not!
I think you misunderstood what I said or I worded it incorrectly. What I meant
to imply was that by buying the software that comes with a dongle I encourage
other software vendors to adopt the dongle as a standard. Definitely not what I
want and the reason I'm reluctant to purchase LS.
Nick
Good! I'm glad this message is getting out… Loud and clear.
I think that something that would help is a **REAL** unique CPU ID. Our SIlicon
Graphics workstations have them on a ROM so you can change out the CPU module
for upgrades and repairs.
If you had a unique CPU ID all of your software would get keyed into it and
wouldn't run without an ID match. If you buy a new computer, you (since you are
the registered user) could arrange with the manufacturer for copies with a new
CPU ID – the best way might be a patch disk.
I'm not a big fan of SPA – I don't like the way that they operate on some of
their "raids" and I don't believe their estimates of money lost by piracy. On
the other hand, I DO NOT support the use of pirated software – if you are going
to use the software you should buy it. In theory dongles aren't a bad way to
protect software, but the theory too often does not translate into reality.
Chris
Was your empty reply to me a mistake or a comment on my message?<g>
There was a copy protection scheme that was floated around for foreign use but
never put into production that would have wiped whatever hard disk it found if
it detected an illegal copy. It was never deployed for a couple of reasons, the
major one supposedly being the nightmare scenario: A legitimate, paid-up user
has a hardware of software glitch that causes the protection software to tag
his copy as a bootleg, and the disk is wiped. Said legit user immediately goes
ballistic and calls his lawyer who sues the software company. The opinion at
the time was that the clause in the license agreement that excludes "indirect,
incidential, special, or consequential damages" would **NOT** be cover this
case because the damage was, in effect, intentional and maybe negligent. A
system like this could be very expensive for the software companies involved.
As I see it there are several kinds of piracy: (1) somebody like a business
that either buys one copy of a package and makes copies for all of their
machines, or gets a bootleg copy and never buys one at all. (2) somebody that
gets a bootleg copy for casual use. (3) Somebody that
has a temporary bootleg – they borrow a copy while waiting for their copy to
arrive or be ordered through their purchasing department. (4) somebody that
makes and distributes (or worse, sells) copies of somebody else's software.
All 4 are at least technically illegal, but the smart enforcement efforts
should target cases (4) and (1) primarily. These represent REAL lost sales and
financial damage to the copyright holder. Case (2) is clearly illegal, but
most often does not represent a lost sale (this is where SPA's numbers are
inflated, I think). There are a lot of "collectors" out there that don't
actually use the software that they acquire. Case (3) should probably be
overlooked because the user "gets legal" in a very short time.
Good, thick manuals and tech support do more to eliminate case (1) than
anything else, dongels included. If you counterfeit disks, you'll counterfeit
manuals, so (4) is an enforcement problem entirely.
Short of a real CPU ID and a method for linking software to that ID (with a
provision for upgrading machines and moving the software at no/low cost) a
dongle or dongle board or dedicated dongle port isn't a bad way to go. I've
used software with floating licenses on networked Unix machines, and it works,
but it requires some type of CPU ID.
Chris
Chris – Actually, I thought better of putting my two cents in! Your comments
about the CPU I.D. seemed good and then I thought why not have one tied into
the motherboard BIOS. Then I thought heck, do I really need to get into this!
You were doing (and are doing a good job) all by yourself! <G> I agree with Don
that this dongle this is getting out of hand and your CPU idea seems a good one
except that like many people I have upgraded my 33 to a 66 and it seems that
the BIOS would be a better idea. If the governmenat mandated the BIOS
manufactures to employ some type of scheme which all BIOS manufacturers and
software developers could work with, then we could dump the SPA, but as we all
know there is no fool proof scheme. So there it is my two cents worth!
-JE
And what if you wanted to upgrade your motherboard from an ISA to a VLB? Your
BIOS changes and all your software is garbage. Cool!
I'm not sure that we want to get the government involved in this (and I work
for 'em! <g>). The market can do the job at least as well.
The Silicon Graphics machines that I've used have their CPU IDs on a ROM on a
little board stuck in the top of the box. That way upgrades and hardware
repairs (the SGIs – at least the small ones – let you change out the entire
electronics package, including CPU, memory, and support circuitry without
changing the CPU ID.
I would rather that every CPU have its own serial number burned into it, but
there would have to be provisions for any software that used the number to be
upgraded when you replace/repair your machine, and at essentially no cost.
We have a package on a machine at work (a small SGI) where, once you've
purchased it, you fax the CPU ID and serial number to the manufacturer who
verifys it and faxes back a "magic number" that you need to let it run on your
software. What you would need for making CPU changes might be something like a
patch disk that modifies your executable with an encoded number that reflects
both the CPU ID and the serial number. This whole thing would take some more
thought to make it secure for everybody involved.
I would worry about a simple CPU ID in ROM because ROMS can be easily copied.
Maybe we need some relative of the Dongle Chip (some of them use ASICs) as a
standard feature on motherboards on new computers, or one of those coded
keys…
Chris