Why must you match your refresh rate or higher to enable vsync? When I was into all this stuff, which admittedly was around the time Wolfenstein 3D came out, refreshing during the vsync was the only way to avoid nasty page tearing. Back then, I was lucky to pull 12fps, and you can bet that page tearing looked horrible.
On the contrary, I'd say just the opposite; if you can crank your framerate high enough, you can *turn off* vsync.
But then I'm outdated. Why is it the opposite of what I'd think? at 75fps and 75 cycles of refresh per second, a page tear will hardly be visible, it'll be on the screen fo nearly no time at all -- and the difference between the rendered frame pre and post tear will be minimal.
Since I've gotten a "hot shit" video card, I've turned off page tearing. Before, I always had to keep it on.
The former of these options seems much more likely. ---
Nitpick? I think you meant the latter. I can think of only a few games which have tried to emulate motion blue (Grand Theft Auto being the biggest one that comes to mind) and it's so annoying it's the first option to turn off.
The "integrated" in "integrated circuit" surely means the circuit is integrated into a single chip. That's what it always meant when I was a kid. We had plenty of systems where processing power was distributed over multiple processors, but a logical circuit made up of NON-integrated circuits is not an IC.
Damn. In my looking, I found that very grate, but I figured it must be the wrong one when it was "impossible" to reach.
Thank you.
That page leads me to a new question, though - it seems there must be somplace in the game you can have a crew of vortigaunts to fight with? I must have missed that...
Does anyone today look at the available technologies, and actually choose MySQL over PostgreSQL? I mean, assuming they aren't already using any database, and they don't have any requirements that would force them to MySQL (like a PHB saying, "But I've HEARD of MySQL! What's this Postgres crap?")... why would anyone choose MySQL?
Yes, HL2's story sucks, even if it's considered treason to say so. That said, I'm only at about 75 to 80% of the game (according to a friend who is done). But up to this point, there was essentially no story, and, what is far worse, no obvious motivation to what I'm doing. -------
Fair warning: It doesn't get any better. I "rushed" through the game my first time, hoping that I would learn something -- anything -- about what the hell was going on around me.
You don't.
What you can do is play though paying careful attention to all the subtle hints about what's going on, then make up your own story.
It's okay -- we all did the same thing when we saw The Matrix, and then when The Matrix III came out and we found out what the REAL sotry was, we all were disappointed. I've decided to be glad that Valve decided not to lay bare the plot of HL2, this way I dont' have to be disappointed that they've ruined it.
I've read on the hint boards there's a hidden Vortigaunt someplace that tells you a thing or two about what's going on, but I can't find the guy. All the tips say, "After you must fight a helicopter to proceed, go look around for two sewer grates, one is open..." yadda yadda. Can't find 'em after the first or second fight with a helicopter or any of the gunship battles. Red herring? Has anyone else found this vortigaunt? Can you tell me more specifically where to look?
I haven't played Half Life (1), so I really don't understand what is going on, or why. ---
It wouldn't help much. The plot is something you pretty much have to figure out yourself. I'll give you the Reader's Digest version of 1, though, as I recall it:
Gordon Freeman goes to work, opens a portal to an alien dimension, spends the next several days killing them while trying to escape the lab, finally escapes to find the government is trying to kill everyone at the lab to supress what happened, travels to the alien homeworld and frees them from their opression, at which point the G-man finally appears in person and offers Gordon a job travelling through time to set wrongs right again (think "Quantum Leap" here, but in your own body.) at which point Gordon is placed 'on ice' 'till he's needed again.
That's it in a nutshell. Half Life 2 opens with the G-man bringing Gordon back from his suspended animation to do his first job for the G-man. Everything else you can figure out by paying attention to the clues in HL2 which are mainly visual -- don't ever pass up a change to watch a computer monitor, for example, and keep an eye out for the G-man (he appears, I'm told, 10 times in HL2 though I've only managed to spot him about 3-4 times so far. Where's Waldo?)
I hit an invisible wall in midair... until I completed the first part and the 'wall' dissappeared. It's happened elsewhere in the game. ----
Could you be more specific? I'd like to see it happen, too.
I had something similar occur to me, here's how to reproduce it:
** SPOILERS **
.
.
.
Okay. Wheny our'e dirivng the buggy around the shore witht he antlions, you come to a house with a car parked in front that you can drop off a cliff by knocking out the blocks under it's tires.
At the NEXT house with a car, you are first introduced to the seeker mines. At this house with the seeker mines, you can push the car around with your gravity gun. Go ahead and push it off the cliff, then grab one of those seeker mines and shoot it where the car was. BOING! It'll bounce off the car as though it were still there, even though it isn't.
Odd. But certainly no dealbreaker. Yours sounds like much more of a problem, could you describe how to get it to occur and where exactly?
Well said. I agree with your analysis -- except that the game itself is just so fun that I am enjoying it my second time through, and I expect to have some fun with it in the future as well.
The interesting thing about the linearity of the game is that it's so natural -- the first time through I didn't really realize I was being led around by the nose.
As far as climb-and-jump puzzles go, I don't remember a single one. I remember a couple of points that were evidently supposed to be climb-and-jump puzzles (like 'stay off the sand!' and that radiation-filled room in the underground car tunnel) but I was able to complete these sections with a minimum of climbing and jumping through 'abuse' of the gravity gun.
I read a story - I think it was in an old, old copy of "How to Win Friends and Influence People." The details are fuzzy now; I imagine the story named some rich Oil Baron by name, but I don't recall.
The story was basically that an employee had fucked up and cost his company $10,000 -- and he came in the next day and said to his boss, "I expect you'll want my resignation now." To which the oss replied, "Hell no, I just spent $10,000 on your education!"
I'm not a game developer, but like many programmers, it's a pipe dream of mine. Since my days as a BBS sysop, I've always thought that if I distributed a game, I'd have it authenticate the clients online, single-player or no.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that while I disapprove of nasty copy protection schemes, particularly when they inconvenience the customer, the Steam system is very much like the content distribution system I've dreamed of my whole life.
I'm sure they'll work these temporary problems out. The overall design of the system and the benefits it provides to both the players and the developers are enormous.
It's a benefit to me because I don't have to worry about losing my disks, or my registration code (usually the first thing I lose, since it's typically printed on the CD sleeve or case, and those are the first thing I break/lose). It's a benefit to me because I can feel good about paying my cash to the actual people responsible for making the game, and not some company that makes its profit on selling other people's dreams.
And it's a benefit to Valve because they can get the money, they can cut out the middleman and, yes, I suppose there's some benefit in having a complete database of your clients.
Doom3 is a nice game. I even think the graphics are better than the ones in HL2 (at least, where it's not too dark to see).
But your comparison isn't valid. I'm no economist, but I remember vaguely from my classes in school that there's a concept of product that can not replace each other. Half Life 2 and Doom3 are like that -- one is no substitute for the other.
I bought my girlfriend a TiVo last year for Christmas. It was the best omney I've ever spent on a home entertainment device.
We paid for the "lifetime subscription" package. Now I regret it.
If I buy another DVR it won't be a TiVo. Their technology is great, I can't complain about a single thing -- except what the company is doing. Fuckers. First they take away my ability to record sports and now it'll be my ability to skip commercials.
I hope this hurts their pocketbook. I can't hurt 'em where it counts 'cause I've already paid FOR LIFE. Boy, was that dumb.
I just put together part of an ecryption system for my job. I've got kind of a question about it, too --
I've heard that using more than one "encryption algorithm" can open you up to new vulnerabilities...
I need to encrypt certain short string in our database and I'm using 1024-bit RSA with OAEP, but I also need to be able to search for all occurences of a particular sting in the DB, so I'm also storing a (salted) MD5 hash of the same string that was encrypted, since the RSA-encrypted string is different even if the plaintext is identical, but the MD5 hash is the same when the plaintext is the same... I can compare based on MD5s and not need to keep the plaintext or even know what it was...
But does having the same string hashed with MD5 and encrypted with RSA open me up to any problems? Is there maybe a more clever way to address my needs (if I've even described the situation properly...)?
Uh... isn't that exactly how RSA works already? RSA doesn't include anything to do with symmetric-key algorithms on it's own... you've got to add that on top if you want it.
Or was that supposed to be modded funny? I don't get it.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not aware that SETI gets any public funding. Am I wrong?
If they DO get public funding,t hen I'm going to hop ont he bandwagon saying they should be cut off. I don't want *my* dollars wasted on that shit.
Then again, I don't want *my* dollars wasted on this shit either. Fat lot of choice I've got, eh?
But what do most handheld video cameras record to these days? Direct-to-DVD?
Uhhh... Macrovision?
Why must you match your refresh rate or higher to enable vsync? When I was into all this stuff, which admittedly was around the time Wolfenstein 3D came out, refreshing during the vsync was the only way to avoid nasty page tearing. Back then, I was lucky to pull 12fps, and you can bet that page tearing looked horrible.
On the contrary, I'd say just the opposite; if you can crank your framerate high enough, you can *turn off* vsync.
But then I'm outdated. Why is it the opposite of what I'd think? at 75fps and 75 cycles of refresh per second, a page tear will hardly be visible, it'll be on the screen fo nearly no time at all -- and the difference between the rendered frame pre and post tear will be minimal.
Since I've gotten a "hot shit" video card, I've turned off page tearing. Before, I always had to keep it on.
The former of these options seems much more likely.
---
Nitpick? I think you meant the latter. I can think of only a few games which have tried to emulate motion blue (Grand Theft Auto being the biggest one that comes to mind) and it's so annoying it's the first option to turn off.
The "integrated" in "integrated circuit" surely means the circuit is integrated into a single chip. That's what it always meant when I was a kid. We had plenty of systems where processing power was distributed over multiple processors, but a logical circuit made up of NON-integrated circuits is not an IC.
Damn. In my looking, I found that very grate, but I figured it must be the wrong one when it was "impossible" to reach.
Thank you.
That page leads me to a new question, though - it seems there must be somplace in the game you can have a crew of vortigaunts to fight with? I must have missed that...
Hahah, that'll work.
"Hello Kinko's Employee. I'd like you to print 500 copies of this here One-hundred dollar bill. You can just keep one of them to cover the cost."
Does anyone today look at the available technologies, and actually choose MySQL over PostgreSQL? I mean, assuming they aren't already using any database, and they don't have any requirements that would force them to MySQL (like a PHB saying, "But I've HEARD of MySQL! What's this Postgres crap?")... why would anyone choose MySQL?
You should be able to give your team the order "STAY HERE AND DON'T FUCKING MOVE!"
---
Hahahah.... dude, you said it.
"Follow Freeman!"
"DON'T FOLLOW ME *NOW* YOU TWIT, THERE'S A SNIPER RIGHT TH.... too late."
Yes, HL2's story sucks, even if it's considered treason to say so. That said, I'm only at about 75 to 80% of the game (according to a friend who is done). But up to this point, there was essentially no story, and, what is far worse, no obvious motivation to what I'm doing.
..." yadda yadda. Can't find 'em after the first or second fight with a helicopter or any of the gunship battles. Red herring? Has anyone else found this vortigaunt? Can you tell me more specifically where to look?
-------
Fair warning: It doesn't get any better. I "rushed" through the game my first time, hoping that I would learn something -- anything -- about what the hell was going on around me.
You don't.
What you can do is play though paying careful attention to all the subtle hints about what's going on, then make up your own story.
It's okay -- we all did the same thing when we saw The Matrix, and then when The Matrix III came out and we found out what the REAL sotry was, we all were disappointed. I've decided to be glad that Valve decided not to lay bare the plot of HL2, this way I dont' have to be disappointed that they've ruined it.
I've read on the hint boards there's a hidden Vortigaunt someplace that tells you a thing or two about what's going on, but I can't find the guy. All the tips say, "After you must fight a helicopter to proceed, go look around for two sewer grates, one is open
I haven't played Half Life (1), so I really don't understand what is going on, or why.
---
It wouldn't help much. The plot is something you pretty much have to figure out yourself. I'll give you the Reader's Digest version of 1, though, as I recall it:
Gordon Freeman goes to work, opens a portal to an alien dimension, spends the next several days killing them while trying to escape the lab, finally escapes to find the government is trying to kill everyone at the lab to supress what happened, travels to the alien homeworld and frees them from their opression, at which point the G-man finally appears in person and offers Gordon a job travelling through time to set wrongs right again (think "Quantum Leap" here, but in your own body.) at which point Gordon is placed 'on ice' 'till he's needed again.
That's it in a nutshell. Half Life 2 opens with the G-man bringing Gordon back from his suspended animation to do his first job for the G-man. Everything else you can figure out by paying attention to the clues in HL2 which are mainly visual -- don't ever pass up a change to watch a computer monitor, for example, and keep an eye out for the G-man (he appears, I'm told, 10 times in HL2 though I've only managed to spot him about 3-4 times so far. Where's Waldo?)
I hit an invisible wall in midair... until I completed the first part and the 'wall' dissappeared. It's happened elsewhere in the game.
----
Could you be more specific? I'd like to see it happen, too.
I had something similar occur to me, here's how to reproduce it:
** SPOILERS **
.
.
.
Okay. Wheny our'e dirivng the buggy around the shore witht he antlions, you come to a house with a car parked in front that you can drop off a cliff by knocking out the blocks under it's tires.
At the NEXT house with a car, you are first introduced to the seeker mines. At this house with the seeker mines, you can push the car around with your gravity gun. Go ahead and push it off the cliff, then grab one of those seeker mines and shoot it where the car was. BOING! It'll bounce off the car as though it were still there, even though it isn't.
Odd. But certainly no dealbreaker. Yours sounds like much more of a problem, could you describe how to get it to occur and where exactly?
Well said. I agree with your analysis -- except that the game itself is just so fun that I am enjoying it my second time through, and I expect to have some fun with it in the future as well.
The interesting thing about the linearity of the game is that it's so natural -- the first time through I didn't really realize I was being led around by the nose.
As far as climb-and-jump puzzles go, I don't remember a single one. I remember a couple of points that were evidently supposed to be climb-and-jump puzzles (like 'stay off the sand!' and that radiation-filled room in the underground car tunnel) but I was able to complete these sections with a minimum of climbing and jumping through 'abuse' of the gravity gun.
I'd like to go go go ahead and go on record as saying that I've not not exper-experienced a single pro-problem with Half Li-Life 2.
...you're new here, aren't you?
I read a story - I think it was in an old, old copy of "How to Win Friends and Influence People." The details are fuzzy now; I imagine the story named some rich Oil Baron by name, but I don't recall.
The story was basically that an employee had fucked up and cost his company $10,000 -- and he came in the next day and said to his boss, "I expect you'll want my resignation now." To which the oss replied, "Hell no, I just spent $10,000 on your education!"
I'm not a game developer, but like many programmers, it's a pipe dream of mine. Since my days as a BBS sysop, I've always thought that if I distributed a game, I'd have it authenticate the clients online, single-player or no.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that while I disapprove of nasty copy protection schemes, particularly when they inconvenience the customer, the Steam system is very much like the content distribution system I've dreamed of my whole life.
I'm sure they'll work these temporary problems out. The overall design of the system and the benefits it provides to both the players and the developers are enormous.
It's a benefit to me because I don't have to worry about losing my disks, or my registration code (usually the first thing I lose, since it's typically printed on the CD sleeve or case, and those are the first thing I break/lose). It's a benefit to me because I can feel good about paying my cash to the actual people responsible for making the game, and not some company that makes its profit on selling other people's dreams.
And it's a benefit to Valve because they can get the money, they can cut out the middleman and, yes, I suppose there's some benefit in having a complete database of your clients.
Doom3 is a nice game. I even think the graphics are better than the ones in HL2 (at least, where it's not too dark to see).
But your comparison isn't valid. I'm no economist, but I remember vaguely from my classes in school that there's a concept of product that can not replace each other. Half Life 2 and Doom3 are like that -- one is no substitute for the other.
Doom3 is no Half Life 2.
Call JULIE before you dig!
I bought my girlfriend a TiVo last year for Christmas. It was the best omney I've ever spent on a home entertainment device.
We paid for the "lifetime subscription" package. Now I regret it.
If I buy another DVR it won't be a TiVo. Their technology is great, I can't complain about a single thing -- except what the company is doing. Fuckers. First they take away my ability to record sports and now it'll be my ability to skip commercials.
I hope this hurts their pocketbook. I can't hurt 'em where it counts 'cause I've already paid FOR LIFE. Boy, was that dumb.
Thanks for the analysis. I'm glad I asked... now I'm going to have to figure out the Right way to do it. :/
I just put together part of an ecryption system for my job. I've got kind of a question about it, too --
I've heard that using more than one "encryption algorithm" can open you up to new vulnerabilities...
I need to encrypt certain short string in our database and I'm using 1024-bit RSA with OAEP, but I also need to be able to search for all occurences of a particular sting in the DB, so I'm also storing a (salted) MD5 hash of the same string that was encrypted, since the RSA-encrypted string is different even if the plaintext is identical, but the MD5 hash is the same when the plaintext is the same... I can compare based on MD5s and not need to keep the plaintext or even know what it was...
But does having the same string hashed with MD5 and encrypted with RSA open me up to any problems? Is there maybe a more clever way to address my needs (if I've even described the situation properly...)?
Uh... isn't that exactly how RSA works already? RSA doesn't include anything to do with symmetric-key algorithms on it's own... you've got to add that on top if you want it.
Or was that supposed to be modded funny? I don't get it.
Hang on, I can count that:
...and one bit set to 0... .... hrm... everything else seems to be a repeat of the same data...
We've got one bit set to 1...
I get 2. 2 bits of data on the internet. Hang on, I'll recount to be sure I didn't miss anything. Nope, just two bits...