opengl is an open standard with sourcecode and specification open to all
OpenGL is an open standard, but the source code isn't open--there isn't even any source code! It's just a specification, then each individual vendor must implement according to that specification. For example, Nvidia makes an OpenGL implementation that is accelerated by their graphics cards, MS makes an implementation that is software only, and 3dfx made a mini-implemenation at one point.
I think maybe Mesa is open-source? Not sure. But the actual implementation inside the vendor's API is whatever they want, and is probably closed (see Nvidia). The only requirement is to follow the specification and the rendering pipeline properly (so transforms/shading/etc will be applied the same through any OGL implementation).
I think there were a number of issues why the first few P4 chips stunk in addition to compiler support. It also had something to do with the actual chipset and RAM and I think if the planets weren't in perfect alignment and you didn't stand on one foot while chewing gum and humming "Sweet Caroline", it pretty much sucked.
Wasn't the big selling point of OpenGL that it was an open standard that was cross-platform? So much for that idea.
This article is talking about DirectX, it doesn't look like anyone is asking developers to write specificly to one piece of hardware.
In the case of OpenGL, however, it open-standard, cross-platform, but unfortunately the marketing department at MS likes to push DirectX on any of its partner developers. Really, OpenGL is the way to go in just about every case where software will be going to multiple platforms, but since 99% of games come out for PC only, it's probably a toss up between OGL and DirectX. Add in the fact that many of the developers may be ignorant to anything outside of MS world, and the balance tips toward MS/DirectX.
Actaully, it doesn't say they would have to write code twice, just write more code to support both. Really, probably not a big deal at all, as every game/graphics engine should have pieces that are specific to the capabilities of the API--remember multitexturing? When that came out, there needed to be "extra" code to support it.
The fact is this article is talking about using DirectX, and that fact alone means that the codebase should be 98% the same for any graphics card. The difference between the ATI and Nvidia implementation is that some features may be enabled/disabled, or, in the case of the 6 texture in one pass deal (for the ATI), probably just a different ordering of API calls. This is not writing things to be hardware specific--on NT/2000, you can't even access the hardware directly (well, you *can* if you really try, but it just limits your audience and means more work for you)...you need to talk to HAL.
In addition, I beleive that the Itanium CPU itself does no real optimization of the instructions, such as common subexpression elimination, loop unrolling, etc. Instead it relies on the compiler to create highly optimized code.
Is this a good idea though? I mean, using one of today's compilers, ported to a IA64/Itanium architecture, a compiled program might run very slowly, since today's compilers probably let a bit of the optimization (within reason) up to the CPU. This would also mean that it may be a little while until some quality IA64 compilers are released. Or am I misinformed?
Just an FYI if you wanted to see more discussion about the movie and technology, at SIGGRAPH in LA next month (August 12-18 I beleive), there is a special workshop/panel discussion thing on Mon 8/13 with people from Sony and Rhythm and Hues (who I believe actaully did the movie work). Only 2 hrs long, but I'm sure very very interesting.
Maybe you can also explain why the DMCA overrides the first amendment?
Not everything in the world is protected by the first amendment. I don't completely agree with the DMCA, but it *does* attempt to protect copyrights. If someone was out on the street selling Xeroxed copies of the newest Stephen King book, I'm sure that the police would arrest the person on the spot.
Just because there is a first amendment doesn't mean that you can do anything and claimed to be protected by it. If that were so, there could be no laws--you could murder someone on account of a political statement.
The fewer people that are reporting the same stories, the better quality those stories will be.
With only one agency reporting the news, it would be more concise, clear, and best of all, not biased at the least in order to get ratings.
Is this a serious post? Have you ever seen clips of the news in Iraq? They still say that they won the Gulf war! Of course, it is government-run, but if only one source is reporting the news, you only get ONE viewpoint.
It's nearly impossible to write a truly unbiased story, giving fair time to all viewpoints. Having a multitude of news sources ensures that most sides of a story are heard, and not even this works all the time.
I'm sorry but the logic behind all the statements in the previous post is just very odd. Think about so many of the major stories over the years, if there were only one news source, most of those stories wouldn't be uncovered. Would there have been a Watergate if there were no Washington Post? Maybe, maybe not. The point of having free media coming at you from different viewpoints--be it liberal, conservative, environmental, industrial, pro-life, pro-choice, or whatever--is that everyone is heard.
Like I said, if you want a country that has one news source, try Iraq.
I suspect that it's mainly due to marketing. Intel/AMD can sell more units of a faster (MHz-wise) chip to the value market, even if it has no/little cache, rather than a chip with cache and lower clockspeed.
Most people look at a chip primarily by the clockspeed--higher MHz sells better.
No matter what, they always fail! Most gamers are playing games because they don't actually want to do what they're doing on screen. If they really wanted to kick people, they could join a karate tournament.
Everyone else has mentioned the Power Glove and the track and field mat for NES. Is this any different? I wouldn't say that those interfaces quite changed the world. People play games to escape reality, not to move reality into their basement or bedroom and have a friggin boxing match in their bed.
Assuming this is correct, the FDIV bug was more related to rounding errors on very high numbers, so I'd say that problem was probably not from the pentium bug, but maybe if it were optimized for 486's and then the exe was copied to the Pentium there *could* be a problem. Then again, maybe POVRay had a bug (gasp!).
A few months ago I wrote a raytracer that had almost the same problem. Ran under windows, everythign worked fine, ran under linux, the lighting calculations seemed off.
After tons of debugging, it was in the implementation of the sqrt() function on windows vs linux. I think i was passing it a zero, and on windows, the return value somehow evaluated to false, but on linux it evaluated to true (or something along those lines).
In any case, same software, different compilers, totally different results. The FDIV error on P1's was supposed to happen like once every 5000 years or something. Of course, maybe that's on average, and *all* of the bugs were happening to you:)
It's nice to finally see Intel realize that the RDRAM exclusivity was a major mistake. I may be blind or idealistic, but I can't help but think that Intel isn't really at fault here. They may have actually thought that Rambus was a better product. But judging from the final product from Rambus, along with the flurry of lawsuits they bring up against practically anyone who uses bits and bytes, I have to say that Rambus as a company is shady at best.
I think among tech-types, this is a bigger embarassment to Intel than the Pentium bug back in the day. I mean, that bug was fairly harmless really, but it was blown up quite a bit in the media. Of course the actual seriousness of that bug is probably somewhere in between what Intel said and what the media said.
But for this Rambus fiasco, the tech community has scolded Intel pretty hard since day one with one benchmark after another, and Intel's refusal to accept that they may have selected an inferior product may have hurt them in the eyes of people who actually respect them for their technology.
I felt the same way when I was a kid and went to see 'Dune' in the theatre with my dad, who is a huge Dune fan. I asked, 'What the heck were all those unresolved subplots about?'
Hold on a second, let me get this straight. You said "unresolved subplots" when you were a kid? Was this before or after they made a TV show about you being a teenage doctor?
I think you're taking my comments on AOL/Amazon and extrapolating them out to cover just about everything in existence.
You and me and everyone else may not like this, but the fact of the matter is that when you post on Slashdot, or buy something on Amazon, you are bound by some agreement (explicit or implicit), that the information you are providing can be used in certain ways. Slashdot and Amazon are private entities, and can do certain things with the information, granted they inform you of it. If you don't like it, basically, you can post on your private message board or go to your local bookstore to purchase a book with cash.
Saying that you want the right to VOTE to what happens in a private organization/corporation is just never going to happen, hence the term "private". Beyond that, you are represented in this wacky government of ours through the normal congress/president channels. If you want to have a more active role, run for an office! Please, someone with your views should be heard and *should* be making these types of laws.
Unfortunately, in our not-so-perfect world, we have Strom Thurmond making laws about technology that he has probably never had any interaction with. But, so goes the world.
What is the excuse for denying bail in this case? Suspect might write more software that would harm the interests of corporations?
I assume bail was denied because he's a flight risk. He has no ties to that city, state, or this country. Think about it, if you were in another country, and arrested for something and allowed to be free on bail, how long would it take you to get to the nearest airport and head back to your homeland?
The price of HDTVs is too high. Who would spend $3500 on a 25" tv??? My computer monitor with a voodoo card can do 1280x1024, which is higher than HDTV(1024x1024) and it costs a lot less.
Everyone take a look at this post and admire it. It is one of those rare absolutely misinformed in every way possible.
First, what is "too high?" Best buy has a 61" widescreen HDTV for $2250 right now. That seems pretty damn reasonable, considering a 36" Sony WEGA is around $800-900?
Second, I don't think they sell 25" HDTVs. I know sharp has a smaller LCD widescreen for around $2000.
Finally, the HDTV resolution is up to 1920x1080. And if you want a 61" computer monitor, I think that might be a bit more than the $2250 mentioned above.
But everyone here seems to miss the point that these "dumb, steaming masses" have lives that don't revolve around computers or their OS. Most probably don't know what an OS is, or even care to know.
When you go buy a car, do you really buy it for the fuel injection system, or is it mostly based on the way it looks and what amenities it has?
I think you're confusing me with the same people who had a big problem with the questions on the Census last year, decrying that it was an invasion of privacy by the government. Of course, at the same time, the same people were filing their income taxes, giving the government far more information that what was on the census forms.
I'm not being hypocritical--as far as Amazon goes (which was what my post was about), they can use what CDs I buy or what type of RAM i use for whatever they want. THAT information isn't really sensitive.
delete the traces they have innocently left in the early years on public forums without thinking much about the consequences.
You know what, if someone posts a message to a PUBLIC forum, why should everyone who now has a copy of that have to delete it, just because the author now decides he doesn't want that to be public? It reminds me of a friend who posted pictures of him and his girlfriend doing the nasty on the internet, and then didn't want anyone to know about it. You know what? If you want something to be private, DON'T PUT IT ON THE INTERNET.
Slashdot Mirror
OpenGL is an open standard, but the source code isn't open--there isn't even any source code! It's just a specification, then each individual vendor must implement according to that specification. For example, Nvidia makes an OpenGL implementation that is accelerated by their graphics cards, MS makes an implementation that is software only, and 3dfx made a mini-implemenation at one point.
I think maybe Mesa is open-source? Not sure. But the actual implementation inside the vendor's API is whatever they want, and is probably closed (see Nvidia). The only requirement is to follow the specification and the rendering pipeline properly (so transforms/shading/etc will be applied the same through any OGL implementation).
I think there were a number of issues why the first few P4 chips stunk in addition to compiler support. It also had something to do with the actual chipset and RAM and I think if the planets weren't in perfect alignment and you didn't stand on one foot while chewing gum and humming "Sweet Caroline", it pretty much sucked.
You mean like when Netscape and IE were competing? In case you haven't noticed, HTML rendering between the two browsers haven't exactly meshed.
This article is talking about DirectX, it doesn't look like anyone is asking developers to write specificly to one piece of hardware.
In the case of OpenGL, however, it open-standard, cross-platform, but unfortunately the marketing department at MS likes to push DirectX on any of its partner developers. Really, OpenGL is the way to go in just about every case where software will be going to multiple platforms, but since 99% of games come out for PC only, it's probably a toss up between OGL and DirectX. Add in the fact that many of the developers may be ignorant to anything outside of MS world, and the balance tips toward MS/DirectX.
The fact is this article is talking about using DirectX, and that fact alone means that the codebase should be 98% the same for any graphics card. The difference between the ATI and Nvidia implementation is that some features may be enabled/disabled, or, in the case of the 6 texture in one pass deal (for the ATI), probably just a different ordering of API calls. This is not writing things to be hardware specific--on NT/2000, you can't even access the hardware directly (well, you *can* if you really try, but it just limits your audience and means more work for you)...you need to talk to HAL.
Is this a good idea though? I mean, using one of today's compilers, ported to a IA64/Itanium architecture, a compiled program might run very slowly, since today's compilers probably let a bit of the optimization (within reason) up to the CPU. This would also mean that it may be a little while until some quality IA64 compilers are released. Or am I misinformed?
More info: here.
Not everything in the world is protected by the first amendment. I don't completely agree with the DMCA, but it *does* attempt to protect copyrights. If someone was out on the street selling Xeroxed copies of the newest Stephen King book, I'm sure that the police would arrest the person on the spot.
Just because there is a first amendment doesn't mean that you can do anything and claimed to be protected by it. If that were so, there could be no laws--you could murder someone on account of a political statement.
Actually, I've gained this annoying habit of skipping the last bit of posts in anticipation of a mindless .sig. Oh well.
And hey! What was wrong with the Nintendo wars? I prefer to be shielded from the horror of war.
With only one agency reporting the news, it would be more concise, clear, and best of all, not biased at the least in order to get ratings.
Is this a serious post? Have you ever seen clips of the news in Iraq? They still say that they won the Gulf war! Of course, it is government-run, but if only one source is reporting the news, you only get ONE viewpoint.
It's nearly impossible to write a truly unbiased story, giving fair time to all viewpoints. Having a multitude of news sources ensures that most sides of a story are heard, and not even this works all the time.
I'm sorry but the logic behind all the statements in the previous post is just very odd. Think about so many of the major stories over the years, if there were only one news source, most of those stories wouldn't be uncovered. Would there have been a Watergate if there were no Washington Post? Maybe, maybe not. The point of having free media coming at you from different viewpoints--be it liberal, conservative, environmental, industrial, pro-life, pro-choice, or whatever--is that everyone is heard.
Like I said, if you want a country that has one news source, try Iraq.
I've never seen so many mistakes in one sentance The irony of the title of that post has officially blown my mind.
I submitted a story about building a steam-powered microprocessor with RAM made out of banana peels, and that didn't get posted--why this?
Most people look at a chip primarily by the clockspeed--higher MHz sells better.
Finally, we've found the true calling of the free software movement. We can all kick a padded stick hooked up to a playstation!
"They may take our lives, but they will never take....OUR PADDED KICK STICK THING!" Not quite so inspiring.
Everyone else has mentioned the Power Glove and the track and field mat for NES. Is this any different? I wouldn't say that those interfaces quite changed the world. People play games to escape reality, not to move reality into their basement or bedroom and have a friggin boxing match in their bed.
Assuming this is correct, the FDIV bug was more related to rounding errors on very high numbers, so I'd say that problem was probably not from the pentium bug, but maybe if it were optimized for 486's and then the exe was copied to the Pentium there *could* be a problem. Then again, maybe POVRay had a bug (gasp!).
After tons of debugging, it was in the implementation of the sqrt() function on windows vs linux. I think i was passing it a zero, and on windows, the return value somehow evaluated to false, but on linux it evaluated to true (or something along those lines).
In any case, same software, different compilers, totally different results. The FDIV error on P1's was supposed to happen like once every 5000 years or something. Of course, maybe that's on average, and *all* of the bugs were happening to you :)
I think among tech-types, this is a bigger embarassment to Intel than the Pentium bug back in the day. I mean, that bug was fairly harmless really, but it was blown up quite a bit in the media. Of course the actual seriousness of that bug is probably somewhere in between what Intel said and what the media said.
But for this Rambus fiasco, the tech community has scolded Intel pretty hard since day one with one benchmark after another, and Intel's refusal to accept that they may have selected an inferior product may have hurt them in the eyes of people who actually respect them for their technology.
Hold on a second, let me get this straight. You said "unresolved subplots" when you were a kid? Was this before or after they made a TV show about you being a teenage doctor?
You and me and everyone else may not like this, but the fact of the matter is that when you post on Slashdot, or buy something on Amazon, you are bound by some agreement (explicit or implicit), that the information you are providing can be used in certain ways. Slashdot and Amazon are private entities, and can do certain things with the information, granted they inform you of it. If you don't like it, basically, you can post on your private message board or go to your local bookstore to purchase a book with cash.
Saying that you want the right to VOTE to what happens in a private organization/corporation is just never going to happen, hence the term "private". Beyond that, you are represented in this wacky government of ours through the normal congress/president channels. If you want to have a more active role, run for an office! Please, someone with your views should be heard and *should* be making these types of laws.
Unfortunately, in our not-so-perfect world, we have Strom Thurmond making laws about technology that he has probably never had any interaction with. But, so goes the world.
I assume bail was denied because he's a flight risk. He has no ties to that city, state, or this country. Think about it, if you were in another country, and arrested for something and allowed to be free on bail, how long would it take you to get to the nearest airport and head back to your homeland?
Everyone take a look at this post and admire it. It is one of those rare absolutely misinformed in every way possible.
First, what is "too high?" Best buy has a 61" widescreen HDTV for $2250 right now. That seems pretty damn reasonable, considering a 36" Sony WEGA is around $800-900?
Second, I don't think they sell 25" HDTVs. I know sharp has a smaller LCD widescreen for around $2000.
Finally, the HDTV resolution is up to 1920x1080. And if you want a 61" computer monitor, I think that might be a bit more than the $2250 mentioned above.
Of course, most people reallyy think that a cdrom tray is analogous to a cup holder, and use it that way.
When you go buy a car, do you really buy it for the fuel injection system, or is it mostly based on the way it looks and what amenities it has?
I think you're confusing me with the same people who had a big problem with the questions on the Census last year, decrying that it was an invasion of privacy by the government. Of course, at the same time, the same people were filing their income taxes, giving the government far more information that what was on the census forms.
I'm not being hypocritical--as far as Amazon goes (which was what my post was about), they can use what CDs I buy or what type of RAM i use for whatever they want. THAT information isn't really sensitive.
delete the traces they have innocently left in the early years on public forums without thinking much about the consequences.
You know what, if someone posts a message to a PUBLIC forum, why should everyone who now has a copy of that have to delete it, just because the author now decides he doesn't want that to be public? It reminds me of a friend who posted pictures of him and his girlfriend doing the nasty on the internet, and then didn't want anyone to know about it. You know what? If you want something to be private, DON'T PUT IT ON THE INTERNET.