Slashdot Mirror

Dumb argument. Candidates change, making the "same action" quite different. Unless you mean to suggest that a vote for Barack Obama is the same as a vote for George Bush, and a vote for Sarah Palin is the same as a vote for Nancy Pelosi.

In United States politics, both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party have the goal of expanding the exclusive rights of incumbent entertainment publishers at the expense of the public. See the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998: the 105th House and Senate passed them by voice vote implying greater than 80 percent assent and therefore bipartisan support, and the Democratic President signed them rather than sending them back for a roll-call veto override vote. I believe the ultimate cause of this is the MPAA's role in helping candidates get elected, which arises from a conflict of interest between television news organizations and the movie studios that share a corporate parent.

Do you realize that you do not need to purchase any DRM-encumbered content in order to enjoy playing online games?

Maybe I don't want to get teabagged in online games. Maybe I have friends or relatives who like to play together in front of one big monitor. But because only a small number of geeks have home theater PCs, games with local multiplayer tend to be released only for locked-down consoles.

1. get quiet pc and place in cabinet or in another room.

I myself know how to hook a PC up to a TV: after you have the PC in the living room, it's a matter of running two cables. But convincing the public to put a PC in the living room is the hard part. Non-geeks buy an appliance so much more often than a quiet PC to put in a cabinet because they don't know they even can do the latter. I've seen a lot of people even on Slashdot who didn't know that DVI-D and HDMI are the same thing until I pointed out my explanation of HTPC cabling. By "promote HTPC use", I meant educating the public that it's even possible to use a PC for this.

Fans under 21 can still go to the games.

With these escalating ticket prices?

Some leagues do online streaming, others will eventually.

Then HTPCs will "eventually" be ready for the set-top.

The first is that most "Nettops" have terrible graphics cards. [...] games that aren't set up to use [gamepads] often need some pretty nasty hacks to get it to work right.

True, the GeForce 9400 is roughly halfway between the GeForce 3 in the Xbox and the Radeon X1900 in the 360. My solution for this would be to develop and sell PC games with a mode designed around HTPC use patterns and the ION chipset. However, other Slashdot users appear to think that the market of geeks with HTPCs isn't big enough to make adding an HTPC mode to a PC game viable. Otherwise, the major labels would have already done it in more than a few token cases.

And if you complained about the tetanus (from the barbed wire) you know what your parents would say? "Walk it off, pussy!"

When I complained about the tetris, and all the new "infinite spin" and "T-spin triple" crap that Mr. Rogers was putting into the tetris, I did something about it: I made Lockjaw.

XNA Creators Club is not suitable for making anything beyond little toy games is my understanding.

Define "little toy games". I certainly haven't drunk the proverbial Kool-Aid about XNA, but can you think of any significant limitations other than what I already list on my page?

At that point you might as well make an Android or iPhone app and get yourself a much larger customer base.

Android and iPhone are counterparts to the DS/PSP/DSi/3DS, not a set-top multiplayer gaming device like 360/PS3/Wii that just needs extra gamepads. On a smartphone, four players mean four $70/mo voice and data plans. The last time I checked, a "family plan" at a U.S. cell phone carrier covered one smartphone and one to three "feature phones". Android has no counterpart to iPod touch: a model with the same app store but no cellular radio. And with the apparent discontinuation of Windows Mobile Classic and the commercial failure of both Zune and Kin, it doesn't appear that Microsoft will have anything to show in this arena either.

Among video game consoles sold in North America, Xbox 360 is the only one that officially allows game development by prosumers. It's not perfect, but it's better than what Sony and Nintendo offer.

You can write commercial software for pc, so why aren't you?

Because the multiplayer mode in the style of game that I plan to develop demands a monitor that is physically larger than the 13" in a typical laptop. Player 1 is using a keyboard or a gamepad, and players 2 through 4 are using gamepads. But as CronoCloud has repeatedly pointed out, only geeks have devices connected to their televisions that aren't locked down.

for some reason you want to code for a console that is not just for your own amusement, if it's a job take it seriously and go through proper channels it's what they're used for.

But the proper channels don't want me unless I have a dedicated office and a previous published title on another platform. I acknowledge that homebrew is good for a project that starts as a hobby and ends as a hobby. Back when I was in the homebrew scene, it was a hobby, and I liked it. Likewise, licensed console game development is good for a project that starts as an established business and ends as an established business. So how should I turn my hobby into a business? Are companies expected to make a game that relies on Internet play before they make a game that relies on local multiplayer?

I find it very odd you can have such a commercial centric view with seemingly not enough passion to do it for the love of it and yet still actually care about it.

Passion carried me through college. But eventually, I have to eat.

You're that concerned with getting TV to people? Why?

I'm concerned with putting PCs next to TVs for a different reason. Video game consoles are locked down, but a desktop PC is for one player at a time, which is hard for households with children. So if I've made a video game whose multiplayer mode allows multiple gamepads, I have to either build a market for a PC version (by promoting HTPC use among the general public) or get it ported to a console (which involves substantial overhead of starting a traditional business with an office to qualify for a devkit). CronoCloud has repeatedly recommended the latter, but he hasn't let on how much the overhead of a business costs.

Just spread the word. HTPCs sell themselves. It's just a matter of knowing what is possible.

I myself don't really know how to explain what's possible. I have an explanation of what cables are needed but not much more. I hereby invite you to create an account on my wiki and then add an introduction targeted at people new to HTPCs. Specifically, what do they have over Google TV, Boxee Box, and other appliances?

I recommend HTPCs to people, and I point out that they don't need to buy new stuff.

Unless, of course, they are part of the one-third of US households who have no HDTV.

And you save much more than that if having an HTPC means you can drop your satellite TV subscription.

If you subscribe to cable Internet access in the United States, you get a substantial discount on cable TV. In that case, one would need to mail-order a $40 adapter cable from VGA to composite and S-Video.

Just spread the word. HTPCs sell themselves. It's just a matter of knowing what is possible.

I myself don't really know how to explain what's possible. I have an explanation of what cables are needed but not much more. I hereby invite you to create an account on my wiki and then add an introduction targeted at people new to HTPCs. Specifically, what do they have over Google TV, Boxee Box, and other appliances?

I recommend HTPCs to people, and I point out that they don't need to buy new stuff.

Unless, of course, they are part of the one-third of US households who have no HDTV.

And you save much more than that if having an HTPC means you can drop your satellite TV subscription.

If you subscribe to cable Internet access in the United States, you get a substantial discount on cable TV. In that case, one would need to mail-order a $40 adapter cable from VGA to composite and S-Video.

Ordinary viewers do not have a computer hooked up the TV

From 1987 (VGA introduction) to 2006 (when HDTVs became affordable), PCs didn't have television output as a standard feature. SDTVs needed an obscure adapter to turn the EDTV output from a PC's VGA port into a 480i signal that they can handle. But by fall of 2010, two-thirds of U.S. households have an HDTV, and HDTVs accept the VGA and DVI signals from common PCs. Why hasn't a PC in the living room taken off, and what can geeks to help make them more common among non-geeks?

Why go to all the trouble of hardware hacks and improvements on technology that is that old?

Because it's a console. Advantages of consoles over PCs include SDTV output as a standard feature, a guaranteed minimum performance level of the hardware, and a culture of actually using the two to four controller ports for local multiplayer gaming. The Dreamcast just lacks the disadvantage of a lockout chip.

Alternatives such as XNA mean that I don't have to worry about such an archaic system in order to run code on a console!

XNA is best among modern consoles, but it still isn't perfect: no porting your existing codebase written in standard C++ because XNA is managed-only, no real-time audio synthesis, a ban on NPCs that speak a fantasy language, the system requirements of XNA Game Studio (you can't just use the old Windows PC that you occasionally drag out just for the odd app), and a $495 certificate bill over the expected five-year life of the console just for the right to run programs that you wrote on hardware that you bought. Details

Yeah, but most homes don't have their computer in the same room as the TV

I thought the whole point of a laptop was that it could be moved from room to room, and that the whole point of an ION nettop was that it could sit next to a TV without standing out.

and of those that do a lot don't have the required output/input on the computer/tv

I thought every HDTV worth anything had VGA and HDMI inputs. I'll grant that most people don't know about VGA to SDTV adapters, but as HDTVs replace worn-out SDTVs, they will become less necessary.

and of those that do most don't know that it's even possible

My Vizio 32" TV's box said "PC input". One doesn't even need to read the owner's manual.

and of those that know, most aren't sure how to set it up.

I want to help fix this, which is why I wrote this guide. Could you recommend improvements?

And most people still don't have HDTVs.

It was two-thirds by May. A home user can't even buy a new SDTV anymore. In your area, when an SDTV breaks, do people replace it with an HDTV, or do they hit the thrift store for a second-hand SDTV?

And most HDTVs have input for HDMI, which the default PC doesn't put out audio over, requiring a separate cable

What on this page about setting up an HTPC is confusing?

As I understand it, game consoles have the big I/O and PCs have the little I/O. What's the median screen size connected to each?

It depends on the PC. Are we talking about a multiple-bus Magny Cours or J. Random PC?

I'm talking about home PCs. These tend to get a 17" monitor for desktops or a 13" monitor for laptops while the game console gets a 32" monitor.

As for screen size, that is relevant but not the entire story.

It's relevant for multiplayer video gaming, for example. You can't easily do this with a 17".

There's also multiple monitors

But how many PC games support multiple monitors, one for each player? Instead, they tend to expect each player to have a separate PC.

You can get high-resolution displays for use with computers

Any TV will work with a PC, but the PC and TV are too often kept in separate rooms.

many schools have agreements with them that permit them to not only use unlimited (or nearly unlimited) Windows licenses on student machines for a song, but also to use them on the administration computers, and indeed in some cases to give Windows away to students for their own use at home.

Windows licenses don't expire until end of support, which is usually ten years out. XNA Creators Club, on the other hand, expires after only one year, so you can't keep it for a couple years after you graduate while you look for a job, especially if you graduate into a not-ideal job market.

Current students in a Microsoft-approved educational program will receive a discount, and/or it will be rolled into the course fees.

And CS programs that switch to free software can offer lower course fees, as well as preparation for businesses that have switched to free software so as not to require a $99/yr XNA Creators Club subscription for every PC in the office just to run software developed by the in-house programmer.

Current desktop/gaming laptop monitors are plenty big and hi-res.

Big enough for four?

Only require a gamepad for two-player multiplayer and you just might get somewhere.

Keyboard support was part of my plan all along. It's just that keyboard sharing is more likely to produce boop ... boop ... boop when both players hold down keys due to limited capacity on common PC keyboards' encoders. Players would start with the same keyboard that they currently use with SWF games and add gamepads when they want to expand play. But expanding past two might run into the monitor size issue.

In the end it's all about working around the limitations (arbitrary or not) that are in place.

Then do you recommend that all indie multiplayer video games either A. be one-switch games or B. require an expensive $2,400 network-of-PCs? I hope not; it makes computers look bad in the perennial PC vs. console flamewar.

That is basically my point, the appliances aren't replacing PCs, just augmenting them (hell, the iPad is basically designed to require a PC to sync to).

PCs can also augment PCs; that was the original point of netbooks before Windows got ported to them and people realized that an Atom was good enough for 90 percent of single-user applications that the majority wanted to run, including Facebook games. But if the majority of set-top devices are appliances rather than computers, and the majority of computers have screens too small for the intended application, where does that leave a small business that wants to, say, self-publish a video game that it has developed?

Ok, and then they are no longer a user.

It appears we're running straight into Layne's Law of Debate over the definitions of "user" and "developer".

I don't see how your sentence there refutes my point at all.

The advantage of Android is that you don't need to become a developer just to install another developer's self-published software.

And I can choose between a Nintendo Wii, Sony PS3, and Microsoft Xbox 360 for my video gaming needs, but they're still all locked-down.

There is a fourth console: connect your PC to your TV. You'll need a few cables, some USB gamepads, maybe a hub, and some TV-friendly games.

Ok, and then they are no longer a user.

It appears we're running straight into Layne's Law of Debate over the definitions of "user" and "developer".

I don't see how your sentence there refutes my point at all.

The advantage of Android is that you don't need to become a developer just to install another developer's self-published software.

And I can choose between a Nintendo Wii, Sony PS3, and Microsoft Xbox 360 for my video gaming needs, but they're still all locked-down.

There is a fourth console: connect your PC to your TV. You'll need a few cables, some USB gamepads, maybe a hub, and some TV-friendly games.

Ok, and then they are no longer a user.

It appears we're running straight into Layne's Law of Debate over the definitions of "user" and "developer".

I don't see how your sentence there refutes my point at all.

The advantage of Android is that you don't need to become a developer just to install another developer's self-published software.

And I can choose between a Nintendo Wii, Sony PS3, and Microsoft Xbox 360 for my video gaming needs, but they're still all locked-down.

There is a fourth console: connect your PC to your TV. You'll need a few cables, some USB gamepads, maybe a hub, and some TV-friendly games.

Can we get an "R" and "D" next to each candidates name?

It doesn't matter. The DMCA was a bipartisan measure that passed both houses of the Congress through a voice vote. Because MPAA studios share corporate parents with the mainstream news media, both Republicans and Democrats exploit this conflict of interest to stay in office.

One thing your representative democracy page fails to mention as of right now is the news media's conflict of interest. Candidates for legislative positions in a representative democracy use the news media to reach their constituents. However, the news media are under the same ownership as publishers of fictional entertainment products. All the major broadcast TV networks and cable news networks share a corporate parent or controlling investor with one of five MPAA studios This means a candidate who advocates correcting the imbalance in copyright won't get heard because any company that reports on his platform would endanger its own profitability.

I don't understand the locked down console argument. It's a benefit, it's a gaming machine which makes cheating vastly more difficult to the point it's not a problem you ever really encounter in online multiplayer games.

The problem is that there's an industry tradition to conflate offline multiplayer with a walled garden whose SDK agreement locks out developers working from home. With few exceptions (such as Trine), PC games tend to support only LAN or online multiplayer, not two to four gamepads plugged into a home theater PC.

A full console game you play as normal at home, but while you're out you can still work on character progression, or play with your friends.

I thought the "play with your friends" thing was an advantage of consoles, which usually have a big enough screen that all players can see it.

do not buy the offending company's product. [...] Either go without or buy a more open alternative.

What is the more open alternative to a set-top game console that still lets me break out gamepads when the kids are over? What HTPC games do you recommend?

While it is true that Nintendo isn't that indie friendly, they are the most friendly out of the 3 when it comes to homebrew development.

Citation needed. Nintendo has put code into recent versions of Wii Menu specifically to delete channel IDs used by homebrew (HAXX, JODI, DVDX, DISC, and DISK). The only official homebrew for Wii is WarioWare DIY Showcase. Compare this to Microsoft's XNA on Xbox 360, which allows for everything but real-time audio synthesis and whose structure ($99/mo to develop for your own hardware; gatekeeper takes a 30% commission on sales) Apple appears to have copied for its App Store.

(here's a hint: there are other places to get your news).

The existence of better places to get news than the MPAA-controlled local networks and cable news channels doesn't help if the majority of the electorate doesn't use them.

I routinely see four-minute red lights at an intersection whose metal detector fails to sense my bike. Can you fit this into your car analogy?

Yes, actually. Occasionally, people get screwed by laws that don't account for them. The best solution is to propose an alternative that works for everybody. If you can invent a detector that works for both cars and bikes, yet still has the lifespan and approximate cost of the current detectors, go suggest it to the appropriate folks.

The major publishers of non-free fictional entertainment own the means that representatives use for communicating to the general public. Can you fit MPAA news into your car analogy?

Yes, actually. Occasionally, there are greedy people who will do bad things that are not actually against the written rules, such as parallel parking in the exact middle of two driveways when there's (unmarked) space for two cars. Sometimes there are laws to prevent such abuses, but those laws may not be worded precisely enough, or they may offer broad exceptions. Either petition to change the laws, or live with them and go make more noise with your free fictional entertainment.

Who write back with a form letter stating that an expansionist position on copyrights and patents is good for America.

And eventually they notice that they've sent out 1500 form letters saying that, or their intern (who actually wrote the letter) comments that they're writing an awful lot of those same statements. Your representative isn't there to serve you. They're there to represent you, and the thousands of others in your area. Those thousands of others have expressed interest in keeping businesses running, keeping jobs, and funding engineers. If you want to change the representative's stated position, get your like-minded friends to write as well. You have a right to "petition the government for a redress of grievances". Exercise that right.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) tried this. His campaign got buried by the mainstream media in favor of that of then Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), whose views more closely aligned with Hollywood's. Look at how little time he was allotted in the Republican primary debates.

Yeah. Maybe if I'd agreed with what he said, I'd have cared more about him. Maybe if his views were popular with anyone other than the conspiracy-loving, irrationally-thinking, anonymous masses on the Internet, the rest of the nation would care. He pushed for positions that I personally don't think are really feasible, and some that I believe to be harmful. He did raise a few good points, though, and his positions were considered by people who were following the election. Notably, that demographic should include Obama, who should now consider Ron Paul's views as representing about 10% of the American opinion. That's how representative democracy works. Even when your chosen candidate loses, you should still get a voice.

To use the infamous car analogy, consider the laws requiring drivers to periodically stop and allow crossing traffic to move. If everyone follows the law, a few people get slowed down by a few seconds.

I routinely see four-minute red lights at an intersection whose metal detector fails to sense my bike. Can you fit this into your car analogy?

That's why American citizens (should) vote for representatives that they believe will support their views.

The major publishers of non-free fictional entertainment own the means that representatives use for communicating to the general public. Can you fit MPAA news into your car analogy?

Want a bigger voice out of the 300 million Americans? Write your representatives!

Who write back with a form letter stating that an expansionist position on copyrights and patents is good for America.

Run for office!

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) tried this. His campaign got buried by the mainstream media in favor of that of then Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), whose views more closely aligned with Hollywood's. Look at how little time he was allotted in the Republican primary debates.

What income are they depriving the creator of? Is it potential profit?

It is the potential profit that the U.S. people through their representatives in Congress have theoretically agreed to grant. (I say "theoretically" because the beneficiaries of this grant happen to control the news media, which in turn control the selection of representatives.)

Or we will decide copyright is too much of a hassle

Which U.S. political party should voters elect to the Congress to make that happen? And how will this party keep the MPAA-controlled news media from burying it?

Thanshin: Let's continue the discussion elsewhere.

Meh, maybe I'm just an embedded person who treasures ARM above all else and thinks that 640k ought to be enough for anyone.

Then go ahead and stick to your Game Boy Advance with its ARM7TDMI CPU and 384 KiB of RAM. If it's good enough for TOD, it might be good enough for you.

And even that almost-from-scratch rewrite has to pass through a fairly serious legal review to make sure they're not revealing too much IP.

"IP" meaning anything other than Internet Protocol is confusing. Did you mean copyright, patent, or trade secret?

Most of the shit in the graphics drivers is caused by DRM though, they can't release any low-level stuff or you would be able to see the DRM'd bits being moved around and decrypted, even if you don't know the DRM bits.

What complication would a Direct Rendering Manager introduce? *beat* Oh, you meant digital restrictions management.

I watched the video, and the impression I got was more of AI failure. The levels don't appear to get anywhere near the level of Super Mario Forever or Kaizo Mario World levels. At 0:29 there's a turtle duck close to a gap, but they didn't make the gap wide enough that the turtle duck is required.

Consoles have placed the X button in all four positions.

The use of "broadband" as a marketing term is particularly annoying, as if a certain modulation technique would guarantee higher channel capacity.

As I understand it, "wideband" refers to the modulation, and "broadband" has since come to refer to data throughput greater than a quarter megabit per second. But even certain "wideband" methods might be more amenable to some error-correcting codes, which put channel capacity closer to the Shannon limit.

I extrapolate that future people will be content with the single word "ugh", whose meaning is apparent from the context.

In H.G. Wells's The Time Machine, the Eloi of A.D. 802701 have fallen into retardation due to having been bred for docility by their underground masters who make the equivalent of Soylent Green out of them. Yet they still have a language with nouns and verbs, which some have conjectured is reminiscent of the constructed pidgin Toki Pona. (I have come to a different conclusion however, involving of all things Ernest Hemingway.)

We have had year of the Linux wireless router for almost a half decade (WRT54GL) and year of the Linux cell phone (Android)

Linux on routers and on Android phones is Linux, but it's not GNU/Linux. (There's a difference.) Embedded Linux need not implement the POSIX and X11 APIs that mainstream UNIX and GNU/Linux use. Maemo/MeeGo, the operating system on high-end Nokia smartphones, on the other hand, is GNU/Linux and benefits from the Qt application ecosystem.

So I want to make an XNA game in C++/CLI. How well does Visual C++ Express run in Wine or Darwine? I checked the Wine AppDB, and the result was "not so well". There appear to be other XNA gotchas as well.

Perhaps [Android OS] should not be counted as GNU/Linux

I agree 100 percent, as seen in this article. But a lot of haters on forums will jump on anyone who uses the term GNU/Linux, saying something like "it's called Linux, you GNU-tard hippie". Android uses Linux; MeeGo uses GNU/Linux.

I know, Android is going up. But that's not really Linux

Which is why, despite criticism from some haters, I continue to use the term "GNU/Linux" to describe Ubuntu, Fedora, Maemo/MeeGo, and other "traditional" environments on top of the Linux kernel. These use a software stack with GNU components in it (glibc, Bash, Coreutils), unlike Android, OpenWrt, and the like, which use something else. I've written about my views on "GNU/Linux".

You realize the xbox 360 has a thriving indie game scene, right?

I am aware of Indie Games. However, I am also aware of these four issues:

• The article is about the PLAYSTATION 3, not the Xbox 360. Since Sony shut off Other OS in a PS3 firmware update, it has nothing even remotely like XNA Creators Club.
• For another, does this include mods to existing games, or is it only for games made from scratch?
• Xbox 360 indie games are not available in all countries.
• XNA, the toolkit used for Xbox 360 indie games, has limitations that I've written about elsewhere.

What's the advantage of a console over a PC for people who develop or play indie games?

But at least I can vote and try to get others to vote the corrupt scumbags out of office

In the United States, neither the Republican platform nor the Democratic platform includes rolling back the entertainment industry land-grabs of the 105th Congress. All three bills I'm thinking of (NET Act, Bono Act, DMCA) passed both houses by a voice vote. I'll believe you once a Pirate gets elected to Congress.

I actually think there is room for a real grassroots movement (not promoted by an advertising agency on behalf of people with vested interests).

They tried that in 2008 with Ron Paul. But at the primary debates, Paul couldn't a word in edgewise because the MPAA controls the TV news media.

I suppose they could, in theory, restrict it to only established companies but that does not jive with what I've seen.

What I've seen of qualifications: "We typically look for companies that are established game developers [...] Home offices are not considered secure locations."

As a practical matter as a small developer, you can just use XBL marketplace to sell your game, and XNA to make it.

I've considered XNA and found a few drawbacks: XNA lacks a practical way to play procedural audio, you can't easily port a game from another platform because Standard C++ does not meet the requirement of being verifiably memory-safe, games are exclusive to hardware that has a reputation for unreliability, and Microsoft won't give you any help in promoting your game; your customers will have to find the needle in the haystack.

Also, I claim that now with the Internet you don't have to. You don't have to be in major stores to sell your wares.

Some genres of music are more popular among people who don't have a PC and broadband.

Besides, "MobileMe" has got to be one of the worst names for a product to ever come out of Apple

But it does sound like a good name for a DS flash card product.

Today's games are only 10,000 times bigger because of the higher-fidelity audio and higher-resolution graphics.

It's not just higher-resolution graphics; it's also more general graphics and more capacity for world simulation. On most consoles prior to the original PlayStation, all sprites needed to be pixel aligned, reducing the ability to show depth by drawing things bigger or smaller or to show direction by rotating the sprite cel. Super Mario Galaxy couldn't have been done on NES. There are also several reasons why a game like The Sims or Animal Crossing couldn't have been done on an NES either. See also other limitations of the NES.

C++ only becomes slower if you use certain features that have a performance impact.

And virtually every useful feature of C++ that is not in its common subset with C is one of those.

What is the performance overhead of namespaces, typesafe object creation, references, function and operator overloading, use of const ints for array sizes (more efficient than C), non-virtual methods, STL (the word "virtual" does not appear anywhere in the STL sources), support for wide characters, protected/private modifiers, etc.? While features like templates and metaprogramming have performance tradeoffs, skilled programmers can use them to make programs that are faster than the corresponding C programs.

Example: if you use exceptions, there is a performance penalty.

And if you use operator new, you use exceptions.

Firstly, this whole point is spurious because you can always use nothrow new, which was put in the standard precisely for people who want exception-free code.

Secondly, the (exception-throwing version of) new may well be faster at error handling than malloc. For the very many programs that only catch allocation errors at the top level, setting up the exception handler is just negligible part of startup costs and far faster than checking the return value from each malloc for zero.

Even if you are doing fine-grained error checking around each call to new, it's not clear whether setting up the exception handler is slower than checking for a null-returrn. It is certainly far less error-prone.

The main slow downs you will see in your average C++ program, over the corresponding C, is the use of the string class

That and <iostream>. Once, I tried programming in GNU C++ for a system with an ARM7 CPU and 288 KiB of RAM. Even after applying all the link-time space optimizations I could find, Hello World statically linked against GNU libstdc++'s <iostream> still took 180 KiB. (Dynamic linking wouldn't even have worked because libstdc++.so itself is bigger than RAM.)

Many C++ programmers use printf instead of iostream. You're perfectly free to use whichever you want, depending whether you are more concerned with code size/performance or type-safety/extensibility.

Note that C++0x has features specifically designed to support a typesafe printf, which will completely own the very type-unsafe C version.

Furthermore, C++ templates allow code re-use with exactly 0 performance loss

As I understand it, C++ compilers implement templates by making a copy of the object code for each type for which the template code is instantiated. Once you instantiate a template numerous times, your binary gets bigger, and it slows down because it has to keep loading data from storage instead of caching it in RAM. This hurts especially on handheld platforms such as the Nintendo DS, which has only 4 MiB of RAM.

I agree that Nintendo DS programmers should limit their use of templates. Not sure why the many programs which are not targeted at the Nintendo DS (Even the DSi has 4 times as much memory) shouldn't be able to generate the far-faster code made possible by template programming (See the "Was it Worth It?" section here).

Frankly, there is no valid reason for starting a new program in C in this day and age.

This is true but only

C++ only becomes slower if you use certain features that have a performance impact.

And virtually every useful feature of C++ that is not in its common subset with C is one of those.

Example: if you use exceptions, there is a performance penalty.

And if you use operator new, you use exceptions.

The main slow downs you will see in your average C++ program, over the corresponding C, is the use of the string class

That and <iostream>. Once, I tried programming in GNU C++ for a system with an ARM7 CPU and 288 KiB of RAM. Even after applying all the link-time space optimizations I could find, Hello World statically linked against GNU libstdc++'s <iostream> still took 180 KiB. (Dynamic linking wouldn't even have worked because libstdc++.so itself is bigger than RAM.)

Furthermore, C++ templates allow code re-use with exactly 0 performance loss

As I understand it, C++ compilers implement templates by making a copy of the object code for each type for which the template code is instantiated. Once you instantiate a template numerous times, your binary gets bigger, and it slows down because it has to keep loading data from storage instead of caching it in RAM. This hurts especially on handheld platforms such as the Nintendo DS, which has only 4 MiB of RAM.

Frankly, there is no valid reason for starting a new program in C in this day and age.

This is true but only technically, because most of C is also contained in C++.