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Dreadnought Demos Released
John Callaham writes to tell us that Gamecloud is heralding the latest release from Torc Interactive and AMD. The latest demos for the upcoming FPS, Dreadnought, have been released. The first is strictly a gameplay movie while the other gives a comparison between the game running on a 64 bit processor (which it was ultimately designed for) and a 32 bit processor.
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# uncompressed normal maps allowing for higher texture quality and greater detail
# significantly higher number of particle effects (e.g. more flames, more steam, more smoke, etc.)
# persistent decals (e.g. bullet holes stay on walls and don't fade away over time as in 32-bit)
# post-processing effects (e.g. screen glows)
# more pixel shader instructions (the adrenaline vision mode is built upon and replaces the base lighting shader to produce the effect)
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there's the rundown on the 32bit vs 64 bit changes.
now, call me an idiot if you will, but none of those really smell like something they couldn't have done in 32 bit - which makes the 64bit vs. 32bit comparision TOTALLY FRIGGIN USELESS unless you're a phb or something. mostly it just seems like they assume 64 bit system to have more memory and a faster graphics card tied to it.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I'm glad to see theyre marketing to all platforms, offering their gameplay files in .exe format.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
This isn't an upcoming FPS. This is a tech demo for Torc's game engine and AMD's AWESOME64(TM) processors.
It's "important" because this is a pioneering game to be geared towards AMD64. Sure, there is the 64-bit Linux binary for UT2004, for which I am very impressed with Atari to be supporting and the developers to be watching bugzilla so frequently, but this isn't a Linux-64 game. I personally wasn't expecting any Windows-64 games to be out for at least another year or two, Windows, of course being the "standard" gaming OS. Either this game is going to be a little before its time, or it's going to put pressure on other developers to get their games out with AMD64 support because there's now competition at some level out there. For those savvy or rich enough to have AMD64 boxes but don't want to put up with having to hand-edit UT2004.ini in vim to change resolutions, we have a newgame that is kind of paving the way.
Important enough to be Slashdot-worthy, anyway.
It's BS.
s p
http://www.snopes.com/computer/internet/dellbug.a
Even dual Opterons with 4 GBs of RAM cannot handle some of the Excel spreadsheets used in the financial industry. Many gamers can't afford or are unwilling to shell out $3,000+ every 12-18 months for a workstation but that's pennies for a finance firm.
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So, yeah, for the average gamer, office worker etc you're right. Who needs the speed,, but there are plenty of people out there who can't get enough CPU power :)
You could use the DOS interrupts, but they were slow and had many issues that weren't good for games. Graphics was down to the metal, no other way of getting good performance, keyboard, joystick and mouse aren't all that complicated, really. No network for the most part, sound usually consisted of 2 or 3 options (speaker, soundblaster, adlib, little else).
No, I didn't think so. Does anyone even use Windows around here? Right, so why post links to .exe movies?
eh? amd has used less power than intel ever since the k8 (amd64/opteron) line was introduced - any pentium 4 or prescott eats over 100 watts today and has for years, compared to ~60-70 watts for older 130nm amd64 chips or ~35-40 for newer top-of-the-line 90nm amd64s.
anyone that thinks any recent (i.e. last 3-4 years) amd box uses more power than an intel box hasn't measured it. yes i know all the amd chips are rated for 89 watts tdp, but that's the ceiling for motherboard design - amd is saying "if you build your board to support an 89 watt cpu, you'll be able to power any cpu we'll release for that platform, ever" - they definitely don't draw that much, and probably never will.