The source code to PGP is available too (for review), but it's not an open source product. Likewise, Java source may be available but it is not open source either. If GNU Classpath filched the Java runtime, you'd hear Sun screaming about it in no time.
While I can understand Sun want to maintain control of the standard, they've got to open up the source. It sounds a little harsh considering.NET is not open at all (although MS do provide a reference version of their CLR), but it has to be done.
Sun needs every friend they can get and putting Java into every distribution of Linux is one very good way to make a lot of friends. That means opening it up. Naturally they'd be frightened of some bastardized FrankenJava appearing, but they would still maintain the standards and the trademarks and they could enforce them. Who knows, perhaps opening the source will stimulate the platform once more.
Another way of stimulating the platform is to embrace Eclipse & SWT. Sun may hate to admit it, but Swing sucks. It's a very nice and flexible API but in practice it sucks. Swing apps run with the grace and speed of a slug. Swing apps look weird even when attempting to look native. At least bundle SWT with the JRE and let people decide which to use. SWT has it's faults too, but it sure as hell transforms the UI experience of Java apps. Aside from SWT I cannot fathom why they won't embrace Eclipse. Eclipse makes Java development easy. The platform has been cursed with crappy tools (especially GUI editors) for too long and it will have to pull its socks up if it wants to compete with Visual Studio.
In other words you agree with me. The controller is no use for RPGs. Now you'll just be holding two controllers instead of one just to move around.
You mean - like a normal PC? Most of us have this thing for a normal PC that we call a mouse, and it works pretty well for icons and menus. I think it'll be fine
Clearly you've never used a gyroscopic mouse or you wouldn't be making the comparison. Attempting to nudge a pointer over a button using a gyroscopic mouse is considerably more clumsy than a normal desktop mouse.
If there is one game that is worthy of a movie, it is God of War. I don't play my PS2 too much (I prefer PC games), but God of War is one of those that I go back to again and again. It's easily one of the best games for the PS2 and consoles in general. Kratos is just such a badass character that the best bits of the game could be turned into a hyper-brutal Conan-esque movie with barely any treatment at all. Unlike Doom or other game conversions, the game's plot, music and set pieces are ideally suited for the big screen.
I wonder why the sequel isn't a PS3 title. Surely it would be appearing about the same time as the new platform making it a perfect candidate.
I've not noticed Zonk before seeing a recent slew of articles by him / hew that breathlessly exalt Nintendo or its games when there must be a lot of interesting news for virtually every platform from E3.
My point with RPGs is that most of the time you are moving from one place to another or expected to be selecting or doing things with menus or icons. None of that is suited to a system where you wave a controller around. That means you're relegated to using the joypad or the extension analogue controller. Some games definitely benefit from more buttons. For example Elder Scrolls Oblivion has a very, very simple UI but even that needs and uses shortcuts to allow you to switch weapons, spells and to jump into the various screens you use.
Actually that impression has more to do with virtually all coverage coming from Zonk, who judging from the breathless enthusiasm for all things Nintendo appears to be something of a fan boy.
The Wii is going to suck for all kinds of traditional games - platformers, sports, RPGs, first person shooters. Anything which requires a precise level of control or lot of buttons.
Exactly. This controller is going to lead to a whole new class of domestic injuries. Not only will there be RSI problems, especially on the wrist but excitable kids smashing their siblings in the mouth by mistake, flying controllers and so on.
That's not to say a conventional controller don't have problems (fps games are pretty lousy), but the Nintendo fan boys are making out that this thing will be the greatest thing since sliced bread when clearly it won't be. It'll be great for hand waving kind of games, but it will absolutely abysmal for platformers, sports, first personal shooters, RPGs and just about any kind of conventional game. The lack of buttons will cause major problems too for ports.
I don't think much of the similar functionality said to be going into the PS3 controller. It might add something to the game but I hold my controller in a fairly rigid fashion so it's hard to see what use the tilt and motion detection will be unless you hold the thing like a steering wheel for some games or whatever. Contrary to what is widely reported, Sony didn't steal the idea from Nintendo. The PSP was long rumoured to have tilting functionality even if it didn't get it eventually. Sony obviously had the idea floating around for a long time but perhaps dusted it off when Nintendo announced something similar.
Personally, I think I'm going to wait for January next for my decision. I think the Wii is a waste of time - it's a GameCube+ with a new controller. I hate cute. I think the XBox 360 is slick, but it feels sterile and a missed opportunity as far as multimedia goes. I don't know enough about the PS3. The problem is that the PS3 and the Wii don't exist yet. They're vapourware. When they finally appear and can be judged from the quality of the hardware, the games (and price of those games) then I'll have a better idea. It boggles the mind to see all those assholes queued up at midnight launch date for any new hardware. Better to wait and let the hype settle before committing.
I seriously doubt you can absolutely know your position since it is governed by the sensitivity of the sensors, the number of times the controller talks with the receiver, dropped packets, voltage breaks, variation in tolerances, conflation etc.
You might be able to make a reasonable guess after initialisation but it would become increasingly inaccurate over time. I expect that the problem would be far more pronounced in a consumer level electronics device than it would be in an autopilot system.
But even so (and without knowing much about autopilot systems) I'm guessing you (the pilot or the computer) would still have to recalibrate the device every so often based upon known landmarks, radio beacons etc. correct? Such a calibration would be a major pain in the ass for any game. Over time, your player character might start drifting left because of the accumulated error in the system.
Someone else suggested sticking things to the corner of the TV for some kind of triangulation. Aside from looking silly, I wonder why such a system would be necessary or practical. People standup, shift around, stretch their arms this way, play close to and far away from the TV, to the side of the TV and so on. There may even be multiple players. A spacial system would have to deal with all that which makes the whole proposition extremely dubious. More likely it's little more sophisticated than a gyro mouse. It doesn't have to be either.
Who knows how it's going to work. The XBox 360 may need extra content because the disk capacity is smaller. Perhaps this extra content consists of a few boiler plate missions. Perhaps Sony will have it's own exclusive content such as extra stations or music tracks. You just don't know.
Either way, extra content for one game is hardly a compelling reason to choose one platform over another. It might be extra content for this title on one platform this time but the opposite the next.
People are bitching that Sony "stole" the Wii controller, but the Wii controller has been done before in gyroscopic mice. Anyway, the PSP was meant to have a tilting controller (for games like Mercury), so one could argue that Sony had this thing in its research labs for a while.
I have no idea how Nintendo claim to track a device in 3D space but it sounds like an extremely dubious claim. At most its likely to be a couple of gyroscopes at right angles, allowing it to detect movement in all three planes. It doesn't mean the console will "know" where the controller is when it's at rest - only which direction its currently travelling. Just like a mouse.
Depends on what you're using the Linux for. For example, you stick a pretty GPE front-end onto it and it would make a good occasional organiser. Or a decent media jukebox. Or an arcade game emulator using MAME. Or you could use the wifi to ssh to it from a PC. Or (and I don't put this past someone), produce a dongle that reverses the USB so you can plug a mouse and / or keyboard into it.
While it's annoying that the PSP has no kind of peripheral adaptor, it's certainly not useless and Linux would be very worthwhile.
The same goes for the XBox. The main attraction for the XBox is that it's a low end PC in a small form factor and has a TV and audio outputs. Perfect as a networked media player.
It's all in the optimization. Games like GTA: Liberty City Stories load surprisingly fast on the PSP. If GTA can boot from cold in perhaps 30 seconds then so can any other game. Some of them don't though - Virtua Tennis boot times are excrutiating.
Like most things it depends on whether the games makers have bothered to optimise the experience for the platform. The PSP does have one advantage though - turn off the device and you can resume instantly the next time you turn it on.
I'd love to see Linux on the PSP. If Sony were to develop a version, it would spawn a huge boom in the homebrew, increase sales and strike a mortal blow to the firmware hackers. After all, the only legitimate reason people have for hacking the firmware is for homebrew.
A decent version of Linux, which boots from the UMD but can use the memory stick as storage and run apps built with downloadable tools would totally satisfy the homebrewer's needs. At the same time it would protect the legitimate game makers because the Linux consumes memory and abstracts the hardware, rendering it useless for piracy. It would still have to be able to access the wifi, controllers, graphics and sound of the PSP. It needn't offer native performance but open GL would be extremely desirable.
Sony tried it before for the PS2, but the setup was prohibitive (you needed to buy a kit containing a harddrive, network adapter and keyboard). None of that would be necessary for the PSP. The PSP plugs straight into a PC and also has wireless. It would be easy enough to SSH to it, or develop using cross-compilers. The ability to instant-on the device means people could have Linux in their pocket. It would be a very compelling environment for people into that kind of thing and done properly could sell a lot more PSPs.
No it doesn't. Simple economics and common sense should be enough to realise you are not going to get a $2000 laptop merely for referring a handful of friends to some low paying sites with an affiliate link. Let's be generous and assume NetFlix the maximum $30 affiliate referral for new customers. How does $300 become $2000? How does $300 become $4000 to cover expenses and profits? It doesn't. The scheme is a scam. There is nothing more to it than that.
If you think different, supply a link which states with exactness how many people you need to recruit to be guaranteed a MacBookPro. Betcha can't.
According to many Mac Mini users, that is way off the mark. You'd be lucky to get 10fps out of a Mac Mini playing World of Warcraft which is more or less unplayable. If the MacBook uses integrated graphics, it will be a waste of time to buy / play any games on it. It would probably be fine for 2D stuff, but anything more and it will crawl.
And yet his chances are still infinitely greater than yours (under that offer).
Perhaps, but then I don't have to sign up to some shitty offer and persuade 5 of my friends (and each of them persuade 5 more friends etc.) to sign up too. All for the remote chance that the affiliate fees will cover a MacBookPro for the guy at the top of the chain.
Considering a bottom of the range MacBookPro costs $2000, this site probably expects to rake in $4000 before sending one out. Assuming $5 in affiliate fees are earned from every rube, that means 1 MacBookPro for every 800 people. Therefore your odds of getting one are at least 1 in 800.
It's no wonder the site is so light on details. It's a scam.
I'm glad to see you've been tagged as funny for this. Charlie Sheen can charitably described as not credible, or more accurately under the influence of mind altering substances. Alex Jones is the poster child for those who never let the truth get in the way of a conspiracy theory, especially those that sell merchandise and DVDs.
If you want one of the 15" ones, feel free to sign up and get Free MacBook Pro. That's the $2,499 one. This is my first time trying one of these things, I hope it actually arrives.
And hopefully it's your last time trying one of these things. It looks like a matrix marketing scam. I notice you included your link so you must be aware of that. The chances of actually getting a MacBookPro probably hover just around the 0 mark.
Let's see what prices we're talking about and whether these cards are built into the machines by default or an option the user must choose.
My opinion is that it's not going to make much difference. The Register reviewed a physics accelerator card and basically thought it was meh - no game utilised it in a compelling way and the fan was noisy. I stick to my belief these things will not take off until they get stuck into graphics cards. It's not like Voodoo cards where the difference between accelerated and unaccelerated was compelling. Even then, where is Voodoo these days? Once their Glide API was shunned for hardware abstracted OpenGL and DirectX the bottom fell of their market.
I have a feeling that the same will be true with these physics engine guys unless they get themselves partnered up or bought out.
This seems par for the course for UFO nuts. When pressed for hard evidence of the amazing things they claim, you get a bunch of excuses or some grainy blurry mess that could be and probably is a hubcap or a spray painted flower pot. In this idiot's case he has no excuse for not providing evidence. If he really saw these super secret UFOs, free energy devices etc, all he had to do was save / download the information and stash it somewhere.
Since he didn't he is full of shit. The UFO / conspiracy nuts will probably love him.
Which is why it should be the EU that forces their hands. If the EU mandates removable batteries and standardized batteries, that would be the end of the matter. HP should know this after the drubbing they received over their "chipped" printer ink cartridges. The EU basically banned chipped cartridges since it rendered them non-reusable.
Re:PhysX - mediocre technology, good business plan
on
Comparing PC Game Physics
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· Score: 2, Informative
End users are not going to be interested in a card with a fan consuming a slot in their machines. This thing must appear on graphics cards or motherboards because it sure as hell won't sell otherwise. A few hardcore gamers might be interested in it but it will never capture the imagination or the critical mass as a card. And few games are going to demand a hardware accelerated physics engine when few people actually have one.
That, and being able to move enormous metal crates simply by shooting them, breaks any immersion the game has created.:/
Better yet, no crates at all. Every bloody first person shooter has crates, more often than not because it's about the only thing you can move. They also happen to be cuboids which is rather convenient for simplifying any gravity calculations. Some games like HL2 & Far Cry try to be a bit more imaginative and you'll also see barrels and some more complex objects, but it has a way to go yet.
I'd like to see destructable landscapes & buildings where you can demolish and blow shit up and the leave a smoking ruin behind you. And scenery that interacts with you and other plays in decent ways. Then we'd be getting somewhere. The upcoming game Crysis (by the makers of Far Cry) seems to be doing some of these things and it will be interesting to see if they're the first to make a good reason for getting a physics engine. The physics engine is something that all future graphics cards should have.
Slashdot Mirror
A glance on gamespy or gamespot shows there is a lot of news about some very interesting titles coming from E3.
While I can understand Sun want to maintain control of the standard, they've got to open up the source. It sounds a little harsh considering .NET is not open at all (although MS do provide a reference version of their CLR), but it has to be done.
Sun needs every friend they can get and putting Java into every distribution of Linux is one very good way to make a lot of friends. That means opening it up. Naturally they'd be frightened of some bastardized FrankenJava appearing, but they would still maintain the standards and the trademarks and they could enforce them. Who knows, perhaps opening the source will stimulate the platform once more.
Another way of stimulating the platform is to embrace Eclipse & SWT. Sun may hate to admit it, but Swing sucks. It's a very nice and flexible API but in practice it sucks. Swing apps run with the grace and speed of a slug. Swing apps look weird even when attempting to look native. At least bundle SWT with the JRE and let people decide which to use. SWT has it's faults too, but it sure as hell transforms the UI experience of Java apps. Aside from SWT I cannot fathom why they won't embrace Eclipse. Eclipse makes Java development easy. The platform has been cursed with crappy tools (especially GUI editors) for too long and it will have to pull its socks up if it wants to compete with Visual Studio.
In other words you agree with me. The controller is no use for RPGs. Now you'll just be holding two controllers instead of one just to move around.
You mean - like a normal PC? Most of us have this thing for a normal PC that we call a mouse, and it works pretty well for icons and menus. I think it'll be fine
Clearly you've never used a gyroscopic mouse or you wouldn't be making the comparison. Attempting to nudge a pointer over a button using a gyroscopic mouse is considerably more clumsy than a normal desktop mouse.
I wonder why the sequel isn't a PS3 title. Surely it would be appearing about the same time as the new platform making it a perfect candidate.
I've not noticed Zonk before seeing a recent slew of articles by him / hew that breathlessly exalt Nintendo or its games when there must be a lot of interesting news for virtually every platform from E3.
My point with RPGs is that most of the time you are moving from one place to another or expected to be selecting or doing things with menus or icons. None of that is suited to a system where you wave a controller around. That means you're relegated to using the joypad or the extension analogue controller. Some games definitely benefit from more buttons. For example Elder Scrolls Oblivion has a very, very simple UI but even that needs and uses shortcuts to allow you to switch weapons, spells and to jump into the various screens you use.
Actually that impression has more to do with virtually all coverage coming from Zonk, who judging from the breathless enthusiasm for all things Nintendo appears to be something of a fan boy.
The Wii is going to suck for all kinds of traditional games - platformers, sports, RPGs, first person shooters. Anything which requires a precise level of control or lot of buttons.
That's not to say a conventional controller don't have problems (fps games are pretty lousy), but the Nintendo fan boys are making out that this thing will be the greatest thing since sliced bread when clearly it won't be. It'll be great for hand waving kind of games, but it will absolutely abysmal for platformers, sports, first personal shooters, RPGs and just about any kind of conventional game. The lack of buttons will cause major problems too for ports.
I don't think much of the similar functionality said to be going into the PS3 controller. It might add something to the game but I hold my controller in a fairly rigid fashion so it's hard to see what use the tilt and motion detection will be unless you hold the thing like a steering wheel for some games or whatever. Contrary to what is widely reported, Sony didn't steal the idea from Nintendo. The PSP was long rumoured to have tilting functionality even if it didn't get it eventually. Sony obviously had the idea floating around for a long time but perhaps dusted it off when Nintendo announced something similar.
Personally, I think I'm going to wait for January next for my decision. I think the Wii is a waste of time - it's a GameCube+ with a new controller. I hate cute. I think the XBox 360 is slick, but it feels sterile and a missed opportunity as far as multimedia goes. I don't know enough about the PS3. The problem is that the PS3 and the Wii don't exist yet. They're vapourware. When they finally appear and can be judged from the quality of the hardware, the games (and price of those games) then I'll have a better idea. It boggles the mind to see all those assholes queued up at midnight launch date for any new hardware. Better to wait and let the hype settle before committing.
You might be able to make a reasonable guess after initialisation but it would become increasingly inaccurate over time. I expect that the problem would be far more pronounced in a consumer level electronics device than it would be in an autopilot system.
But even so (and without knowing much about autopilot systems) I'm guessing you (the pilot or the computer) would still have to recalibrate the device every so often based upon known landmarks, radio beacons etc. correct? Such a calibration would be a major pain in the ass for any game. Over time, your player character might start drifting left because of the accumulated error in the system.
Someone else suggested sticking things to the corner of the TV for some kind of triangulation. Aside from looking silly, I wonder why such a system would be necessary or practical. People standup, shift around, stretch their arms this way, play close to and far away from the TV, to the side of the TV and so on. There may even be multiple players. A spacial system would have to deal with all that which makes the whole proposition extremely dubious. More likely it's little more sophisticated than a gyro mouse. It doesn't have to be either.
Either way, extra content for one game is hardly a compelling reason to choose one platform over another. It might be extra content for this title on one platform this time but the opposite the next.
I have no idea how Nintendo claim to track a device in 3D space but it sounds like an extremely dubious claim. At most its likely to be a couple of gyroscopes at right angles, allowing it to detect movement in all three planes. It doesn't mean the console will "know" where the controller is when it's at rest - only which direction its currently travelling. Just like a mouse.
While it's annoying that the PSP has no kind of peripheral adaptor, it's certainly not useless and Linux would be very worthwhile.
The same goes for the XBox. The main attraction for the XBox is that it's a low end PC in a small form factor and has a TV and audio outputs. Perfect as a networked media player.
Like most things it depends on whether the games makers have bothered to optimise the experience for the platform. The PSP does have one advantage though - turn off the device and you can resume instantly the next time you turn it on.
A decent version of Linux, which boots from the UMD but can use the memory stick as storage and run apps built with downloadable tools would totally satisfy the homebrewer's needs. At the same time it would protect the legitimate game makers because the Linux consumes memory and abstracts the hardware, rendering it useless for piracy. It would still have to be able to access the wifi, controllers, graphics and sound of the PSP. It needn't offer native performance but open GL would be extremely desirable.
Sony tried it before for the PS2, but the setup was prohibitive (you needed to buy a kit containing a harddrive, network adapter and keyboard). None of that would be necessary for the PSP. The PSP plugs straight into a PC and also has wireless. It would be easy enough to SSH to it, or develop using cross-compilers. The ability to instant-on the device means people could have Linux in their pocket. It would be a very compelling environment for people into that kind of thing and done properly could sell a lot more PSPs.
If you think different, supply a link which states with exactness how many people you need to recruit to be guaranteed a MacBookPro. Betcha can't.
According to many Mac Mini users, that is way off the mark. You'd be lucky to get 10fps out of a Mac Mini playing World of Warcraft which is more or less unplayable. If the MacBook uses integrated graphics, it will be a waste of time to buy / play any games on it. It would probably be fine for 2D stuff, but anything more and it will crawl.
Perhaps, but then I don't have to sign up to some shitty offer and persuade 5 of my friends (and each of them persuade 5 more friends etc.) to sign up too. All for the remote chance that the affiliate fees will cover a MacBookPro for the guy at the top of the chain.
Considering a bottom of the range MacBookPro costs $2000, this site probably expects to rake in $4000 before sending one out. Assuming $5 in affiliate fees are earned from every rube, that means 1 MacBookPro for every 800 people. Therefore your odds of getting one are at least 1 in 800.
It's no wonder the site is so light on details. It's a scam.
I'm glad to see you've been tagged as funny for this. Charlie Sheen can charitably described as not credible, or more accurately under the influence of mind altering substances. Alex Jones is the poster child for those who never let the truth get in the way of a conspiracy theory, especially those that sell merchandise and DVDs.
And hopefully it's your last time trying one of these things. It looks like a matrix marketing scam. I notice you included your link so you must be aware of that. The chances of actually getting a MacBookPro probably hover just around the 0 mark.
My opinion is that it's not going to make much difference. The Register reviewed a physics accelerator card and basically thought it was meh - no game utilised it in a compelling way and the fan was noisy. I stick to my belief these things will not take off until they get stuck into graphics cards. It's not like Voodoo cards where the difference between accelerated and unaccelerated was compelling. Even then, where is Voodoo these days? Once their Glide API was shunned for hardware abstracted OpenGL and DirectX the bottom fell of their market.
I have a feeling that the same will be true with these physics engine guys unless they get themselves partnered up or bought out.
Since he didn't he is full of shit. The UFO / conspiracy nuts will probably love him.
Which is why it should be the EU that forces their hands. If the EU mandates removable batteries and standardized batteries, that would be the end of the matter. HP should know this after the drubbing they received over their "chipped" printer ink cartridges. The EU basically banned chipped cartridges since it rendered them non-reusable.
End users are not going to be interested in a card with a fan consuming a slot in their machines. This thing must appear on graphics cards or motherboards because it sure as hell won't sell otherwise. A few hardcore gamers might be interested in it but it will never capture the imagination or the critical mass as a card. And few games are going to demand a hardware accelerated physics engine when few people actually have one.
Better yet, no crates at all. Every bloody first person shooter has crates, more often than not because it's about the only thing you can move. They also happen to be cuboids which is rather convenient for simplifying any gravity calculations. Some games like HL2 & Far Cry try to be a bit more imaginative and you'll also see barrels and some more complex objects, but it has a way to go yet.
I'd like to see destructable landscapes & buildings where you can demolish and blow shit up and the leave a smoking ruin behind you. And scenery that interacts with you and other plays in decent ways. Then we'd be getting somewhere. The upcoming game Crysis (by the makers of Far Cry) seems to be doing some of these things and it will be interesting to see if they're the first to make a good reason for getting a physics engine. The physics engine is something that all future graphics cards should have.