Dunno about pandora, can't get it in the uk. Spotify is a bit like last fm, except that you get to listen to full albums (rather than a few tracks per artist), and it has a far greater selection of music available. Unlike the other services I've tried though, it does feel a lot less restrictive - just inserts an advert between every few songs.
Mobile phone's cost money, and we are talking about a 15 yo kid. Most teenages have pay as you go phones that are all out of credit - "call me, I can recieve but can't send.....". Whenever I go into the local newsagent to buy some ciggys, during any half term (or any other school break), I normally see a large gaggle of teenagers scraping some coins together to get £2 phone credit.
It's therefore very unsurprising that this teenager, with his limited world view, has decided that games consoles are better to communicate with, than an expensive phone. First there's the cost. Second, if he's a gamer, there's a good chance his friends are gamers, and since they are unlikely to be in the pub (because they are too young), they'll probably be found at home, infront of theirs consoles. It is therefore the best communication medium for *him*.
Granted the kid will grow up, start going to the pub, and have his own income that he can spend on phone credit. At that point, he'll have probably ditched consoles all together, and got himself a brand new iPhone 9, and be playing Halo 17 on the bus back from work on it.
Even though it was not that long ago, it's very easy to forget how your mind worked when you were a teenager. Every so often something like this will come along and remind you how small minded you were just a few years ago;)
I've also heard -- and I can't verify this -- that it helps to have a notebook full of sketches, stories, game mechanics, ideas you've had in relation to games. You keep this and bring it to an interview. You pass the technical aspects and then you let them know that you really want this and that you are also creative and not just technical.
I'll verify it for you. It's mainly for 2 reasons. Firstly, in most area's of software development you have a teams of programmers, some testers, customer support etc. In game development by far the largest chunk of the development team are made up of artists and animators. Since development is a team process, it helps significantly if you can communicate (well) with the artists on the team. The other reason is that by and large, most of the game programmers will be in some way involved in creating a graphical output (HUD, GUI, animation, shading etc). If you have well trained visual eye, it will vastly improve the quality from 'crap coder art' into something that has a string visual aesthetic.
I'm sorry, but having been a programming lecturer at the ncca, i actually think it's the worst possible place to start. The industry uses C++; standardized API's (eg, openGL, D3D, openAL); middleware (physX, morpheme); and is largely based in 3D graphics (BSP trees, quad trees, quat blending, shaders etc etc).
I can't see any advantage in wasting time with a basic-like language, on hardware that has very little relation to current consoles (single threaded, no GPU of merit). It may be of some benefit to programming handheld consoles (ok, just the DS), however even that is not going to help in a few years time (the next generation of handhelds are likely to include fairly powerful GPU's - eg PSP).
There is a huge amount of information to learn and digest before you can expect to get a job in this industry, so spend time learning that (by writing games) and not on information that has little real world usage.
They do actually have an internal university, and believe it or not, it's actually pretty good. Unfortunately, you get crap when pushed by managers and money men to continually cut corners - but that doesn't reflect the quality of the individuals working on the (not amazing) products.
Designing a game is very very different to programming one. C++ isn't going to help you get a design job at all. If you are expecting to be a programmer in the industry, and want to influence the design aspects of a game, then to be perfectly honest you are going to be disappointed. It doesn't happen.
If you're aiming to be a programmer, then yes C++ is pretty much required, along with a host of other languages:
- lua/ruby/python or other scripting language.
- GLSL/HLSL/cg
- C#, mel, vb, tcl/tk for tools programming.
In addition, you may also want to get experience of:
- trig, linear algebra, quaternions, collision detection
- SSE intrinsics
- Animation and physics coding
- Geometry deformation techniques
- Space partitioning algorithms
If you really want to stand out from the crowd, start putting work into your art portfolio, and get a lot of experience of animation and modelling tools (max/maya/xsi).
To be fair the parent did say he'd just saved a fortune upgrading a cluster by going AMD. Sure, if you are starting from nothing, Nehalem may be the best bet. If however you already have a tonne of DDR2 & AM2 motherboards, then the AMD route is going to be far cheaper...
I've got a.org site, and have had for quite a few years. About a year ago someone bought the.com version of the domain, waited an entire year, and then tried to sell me the domain for $950 or 'make me an offer'. I offered him 50pence, and since I was the only similarly named domain I figured he realised he couldn't make any money from it, and then didn't renew. I was able to pick up the domain for the standard price after that.
My advice would be to register a.org or.net version of the domain, and simply wait. They'll contact you eventually, just don't give them a penny and it'll eventually work out.
a TV set is much bigger than a laptop and needs two people to carry it, that or the parent doesn't know that you can re-install an OS (he might be the burglar?)
I pity your troll status (alas I have no mod points). It's a fair point though - anyone using nLite and/or vLite to create an unattended installation disk can't say that windows is difficult to install. It's generally a good idea to use it anyway, otherwise the faffing around with service packs + updates is annoying (which appears to be what people are moaning about 99% of the time).
Upgraded a friends PC to an AGP 3850 and have seen absolutely no problems with it. Perfectly happy playing games and blu-ray films - for the money it's actually a pretty decent card (It was the sapphire one from the first link). It's one of the only choices available to get DX10 on an AGP system (apart from the 3870 obviously)
Slashdot Mirror
nah... they'll just think it's windows 7 :p
Dunno about pandora, can't get it in the uk. Spotify is a bit like last fm, except that you get to listen to full albums (rather than a few tracks per artist), and it has a far greater selection of music available. Unlike the other services I've tried though, it does feel a lot less restrictive - just inserts an advert between every few songs.
It really doesn't, because it's anecdotal. The plural of anecdote is not data.
It is if you're in marketing....
phone credit is like gold-dust to 15 year olds.....
Mobile phone's cost money, and we are talking about a 15 yo kid. Most teenages have pay as you go phones that are all out of credit - "call me, I can recieve but can't send.....". Whenever I go into the local newsagent to buy some ciggys, during any half term (or any other school break), I normally see a large gaggle of teenagers scraping some coins together to get £2 phone credit.
;)
It's therefore very unsurprising that this teenager, with his limited world view, has decided that games consoles are better to communicate with, than an expensive phone. First there's the cost. Second, if he's a gamer, there's a good chance his friends are gamers, and since they are unlikely to be in the pub (because they are too young), they'll probably be found at home, infront of theirs consoles. It is therefore the best communication medium for *him*.
Granted the kid will grow up, start going to the pub, and have his own income that he can spend on phone credit. At that point, he'll have probably ditched consoles all together, and got himself a brand new iPhone 9, and be playing Halo 17 on the bus back from work on it.
Even though it was not that long ago, it's very easy to forget how your mind worked when you were a teenager. Every so often something like this will come along and remind you how small minded you were just a few years ago
I agree. My computer will now know when I'm flipping it the bird, or watching porn. Awesome... !
I've also heard -- and I can't verify this -- that it helps to have a notebook full of sketches, stories, game mechanics, ideas you've had in relation to games. You keep this and bring it to an interview. You pass the technical aspects and then you let them know that you really want this and that you are also creative and not just technical.
I'll verify it for you. It's mainly for 2 reasons. Firstly, in most area's of software development you have a teams of programmers, some testers, customer support etc. In game development by far the largest chunk of the development team are made up of artists and animators. Since development is a team process, it helps significantly if you can communicate (well) with the artists on the team.
The other reason is that by and large, most of the game programmers will be in some way involved in creating a graphical output (HUD, GUI, animation, shading etc). If you have well trained visual eye, it will vastly improve the quality from 'crap coder art' into something that has a string visual aesthetic.
I'm sorry, but having been a programming lecturer at the ncca, i actually think it's the worst possible place to start. The industry uses C++; standardized API's (eg, openGL, D3D, openAL); middleware (physX, morpheme); and is largely based in 3D graphics (BSP trees, quad trees, quat blending, shaders etc etc).
I can't see any advantage in wasting time with a basic-like language, on hardware that has very little relation to current consoles (single threaded, no GPU of merit). It may be of some benefit to programming handheld consoles (ok, just the DS), however even that is not going to help in a few years time (the next generation of handhelds are likely to include fairly powerful GPU's - eg PSP).
There is a huge amount of information to learn and digest before you can expect to get a job in this industry, so spend time learning that (by writing games) and not on information that has little real world usage.
They do actually have an internal university, and believe it or not, it's actually pretty good. Unfortunately, you get crap when pushed by managers and money men to continually cut corners - but that doesn't reflect the quality of the individuals working on the (not amazing) products.
Not for a design job....
Designing a game is very very different to programming one. C++ isn't going to help you get a design job at all. If you are expecting to be a programmer in the industry, and want to influence the design aspects of a game, then to be perfectly honest you are going to be disappointed. It doesn't happen.
If you're aiming to be a programmer, then yes C++ is pretty much required, along with a host of other languages:
- lua/ruby/python or other scripting language.
- GLSL/HLSL/cg
- C#, mel, vb, tcl/tk for tools programming.
In addition, you may also want to get experience of:
- trig, linear algebra, quaternions, collision detection
- SSE intrinsics
- Animation and physics coding
- Geometry deformation techniques
- Space partitioning algorithms
If you really want to stand out from the crowd, start putting work into your art portfolio, and get a lot of experience of animation and modelling tools (max/maya/xsi).
Try hopping in a straight line on it....
The Power Glove would be a better name.
To be fair the parent did say he'd just saved a fortune upgrading a cluster by going AMD. Sure, if you are starting from nothing, Nehalem may be the best bet. If however you already have a tonne of DDR2 & AM2 motherboards, then the AMD route is going to be far cheaper...
Although the same can be said for glass fronted buildings. Not a day goes by in this office without a bird splatting against the window....
I've got a .org site, and have had for quite a few years. About a year ago someone bought the .com version of the domain, waited an entire year, and then tried to sell me the domain for $950 or 'make me an offer'. I offered him 50pence, and since I was the only similarly named domain I figured he realised he couldn't make any money from it, and then didn't renew. I was able to pick up the domain for the standard price after that.
.org or .net version of the domain, and simply wait. They'll contact you eventually, just don't give them a penny and it'll eventually work out.
My advice would be to register a
They both messed up....(I'm guessing due to html)
You iterate with an iterator type, not a pointer.
for(std::list < Item >::iterator it=list.begin(); it!=list.end(); ++it) {
cout << *it "\n";
}
In a thread about code size vs slowness?
a TV set is much bigger than a laptop and needs two people to carry it, that or the parent doesn't know that you can re-install an OS (he might be the burglar?)
I pity your troll status (alas I have no mod points). It's a fair point though - anyone using nLite and/or vLite to create an unattended installation disk can't say that windows is difficult to install. It's generally a good idea to use it anyway, otherwise the faffing around with service packs + updates is annoying (which appears to be what people are moaning about 99% of the time).
There's also the ATI 3650 as well. The 3850 would be better though....
No... I tell a lie. It was the 3650 I installed and there is no 3870 - I actually meant the 3850.
Upgraded a friends PC to an AGP 3850 and have seen absolutely no problems with it. Perfectly happy playing games and blu-ray films - for the money it's actually a pretty decent card (It was the sapphire one from the first link). It's one of the only choices available to get DX10 on an AGP system (apart from the 3870 obviously)
Not sure how much help pictures of lolcats and pedobear will be....
Given that most game levels are finite, pre-rendering every possible viewing angle would certainly be possible - it's just a little bit retarded.