PlayStation 3 having OpenGL support is scarcely relevant considering the performance relative to the other available APIs. No-one uses it there. Any game studios targeting a subset of the 3 major HD gaming platforms - ie. Windows, 360, PS3 - are almost certainly not going anywhere near OpenGL.
Though you do have a point with regards to anyone doing mobile, Wii, or a game targeting both Windows and MacOS (which is presumably a growing area since Steam's arrival on the latter).
While I'd also disagree with the grandparent, some corrections to this:
Actually DirectSound is deprecated and OpenAL is recommended (IRCC, by Microsoft no less).
I suspect Microsoft recommend XAudio rather than OpenAL, what with that being their intended replacement for DirectSound.
Input is something DirectX is good at - although the input interface has changed over the years
The API has certainly changed, yes - in the sense that DirectInput has been deprecated since, IIRC, DX8. Microsoft recommend a combination of XInput and WM_INPUT these days.
My iPhone 3G is noticeably slower since the upgrade, and also much more prone to mysterious hangs while it thinks deeply about something important. It could be that it's down to the steady accumulation of stuff on the device, Windows registry style, but it certainly seemed to me that iOS 4 resulted in a step change in performance.
I'd assumed this was established scientific consensus but a quick Google and a look at Wikipedia doesn't show anything obvious either. Huh. But regardless, I expect that anyone that's done any regular long-ish distance running will tell you that it's pretty habit forming. I don't know if I'd go quite as far as addictive but certainly when I've established a rhythm - say, two runs a week on fixed days - I'm very much anticipating the next one when it comes around, both physically and mentally.
A pretty good proportion of violent deaths, etc., are still down to religion one way or another, I'd say. The perpetrators may be using scientific developments to achieve their goal more efficiently but I'm not sure that's really the problem.
When the PC version of a game makes up 10% of sales I don't think bankruptcy from losing some of those customers is very likely. It's probably a higher proportion for Settlers, I guess, but I'm sure it's low for AC2. And when there are also figures available demonstrating that frequently even with non-pervasive DRM that pirated copies seem to number several times more than legitimate copies - see MW2 in particular - I imagine that publishers could easily be feeling that they don't have much to lose, regardless of some noise on some forums.
(Mostly playing Devil's advocate here because I certainly don't condone this draconian scheme. But at the same time, the PC market is in such a state, and so many of its supporters apparently refuse to support it by actually spending money on the games they play, that I'm unfortunately unsurprised by any of these developments.)
I simply cannot understand those anti-piracy adverts on the front of legitimate movie experiences. Who do they think they're targetting? From what I can tell, most people that illegally download movies (or any other media) themselves tend to pirate more or less everything they watch and will never see the ads. And of course the ultimate irony is that I have a poor experience at the cinema much more often than I do occasionally watching a copy of something from a friend, because some assholes are talking in the next row or there are issues with the sound or whatever. I still go because usually the experience - the one bit of anti-piracy propoganda that's actually on the money - is superior but patronising me before every movie I watch is not the way to keep my custom.
Though frankly, the pointless pedantry over stealing vs shoplifting is tiresome. Yes, they're technically and legally distinct but it makes no practical difference and is such a weak argument that it undermines other more legitimate points when it's so often repeated.
Basically Windows writes to the disk *all the time* until it sleeps, so the best way to minimize disk use is to park the head almost instantly after any inactivity, as that will park it asap when it sleeps.
Unless it's somehow doing so without triggering the HD light this just isn't true, at least under XP. I guess you're comparing either against Vista or Windows Malware Edition.
It doesn't need to sell 35x as many copies, it just needs to sell enough to cover that additional $34m deficit. Besides, EA make a lot of money off each copy they sell, consdering they're generally the publisher, distributor and developer. Was Gal Civ II even a full price title?
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Er, that would be a 128-bit pointer.
PlayStation 3 having OpenGL support is scarcely relevant considering the performance relative to the other available APIs. No-one uses it there. Any game studios targeting a subset of the 3 major HD gaming platforms - ie. Windows, 360, PS3 - are almost certainly not going anywhere near OpenGL. Though you do have a point with regards to anyone doing mobile, Wii, or a game targeting both Windows and MacOS (which is presumably a growing area since Steam's arrival on the latter).
Actually DirectSound is deprecated and OpenAL is recommended (IRCC, by Microsoft no less).
I suspect Microsoft recommend XAudio rather than OpenAL, what with that being their intended replacement for DirectSound.
Input is something DirectX is good at - although the input interface has changed over the years
The API has certainly changed, yes - in the sense that DirectInput has been deprecated since, IIRC, DX8. Microsoft recommend a combination of XInput and WM_INPUT these days.
My iPhone 3G is noticeably slower since the upgrade, and also much more prone to mysterious hangs while it thinks deeply about something important. It could be that it's down to the steady accumulation of stuff on the device, Windows registry style, but it certainly seemed to me that iOS 4 resulted in a step change in performance.
I reckon a website displayed on one of these would probably work ok.
Is that a quote from 24?
Do you still write email as 'e-mail' and regard the word 'text' as strictly a noun...?
I'd assumed this was established scientific consensus but a quick Google and a look at Wikipedia doesn't show anything obvious either. Huh. But regardless, I expect that anyone that's done any regular long-ish distance running will tell you that it's pretty habit forming. I don't know if I'd go quite as far as addictive but certainly when I've established a rhythm - say, two runs a week on fixed days - I'm very much anticipating the next one when it comes around, both physically and mentally.
Are you reading random public Facebook pages or do you just have awful friends?
A pretty good proportion of violent deaths, etc., are still down to religion one way or another, I'd say. The perpetrators may be using scientific developments to achieve their goal more efficiently but I'm not sure that's really the problem.
When the PC version of a game makes up 10% of sales I don't think bankruptcy from losing some of those customers is very likely. It's probably a higher proportion for Settlers, I guess, but I'm sure it's low for AC2. And when there are also figures available demonstrating that frequently even with non-pervasive DRM that pirated copies seem to number several times more than legitimate copies - see MW2 in particular - I imagine that publishers could easily be feeling that they don't have much to lose, regardless of some noise on some forums. (Mostly playing Devil's advocate here because I certainly don't condone this draconian scheme. But at the same time, the PC market is in such a state, and so many of its supporters apparently refuse to support it by actually spending money on the games they play, that I'm unfortunately unsurprised by any of these developments.)
They're money-grabbing corporate assholes, not magicians.
I simply cannot understand those anti-piracy adverts on the front of legitimate movie experiences. Who do they think they're targetting? From what I can tell, most people that illegally download movies (or any other media) themselves tend to pirate more or less everything they watch and will never see the ads. And of course the ultimate irony is that I have a poor experience at the cinema much more often than I do occasionally watching a copy of something from a friend, because some assholes are talking in the next row or there are issues with the sound or whatever. I still go because usually the experience - the one bit of anti-piracy propoganda that's actually on the money - is superior but patronising me before every movie I watch is not the way to keep my custom. Though frankly, the pointless pedantry over stealing vs shoplifting is tiresome. Yes, they're technically and legally distinct but it makes no practical difference and is such a weak argument that it undermines other more legitimate points when it's so often repeated.
Basically Windows writes to the disk *all the time* until it sleeps, so the best way to minimize disk use is to park the head almost instantly after any inactivity, as that will park it asap when it sleeps.
Unless it's somehow doing so without triggering the HD light this just isn't true, at least under XP. I guess you're comparing either against Vista or Windows Malware Edition.
It doesn't need to sell 35x as many copies, it just needs to sell enough to cover that additional $34m deficit. Besides, EA make a lot of money off each copy they sell, consdering they're generally the publisher, distributor and developer. Was Gal Civ II even a full price title?
In the sense that 0 == 0, no.
I'd say this link would be a little more relevant: http://www.transgaming.com/products/swiftshader/
There's nothing to catch.
Call me crazy but I think the spiders may not know this.