There's one failure salvaged and made a success.
on
Iridium Saved?
·
· Score: 1
Now if we could only scrape up what's left of those other failed dot-coms. At least NetPliance gave us these neat-o socket 7 bare-bones systems with an LCD screen!
There are so many ways to cheat in Counter-Strike. From model changes to autoaim hacks to autoshoot hacks to the ASUS See-Through drivers, there are so many damned ways. Obviously, the see-through drivers were the worst, since they were hacked to work with any NVidia card. I have already proposed that all clients with the gl_vendor of Asus be banned outright from all servers (of course, this would spawn a desire to hack further into the drivers to change the gl_vendor, etc., etc.).
Seriously, who's going to order X amount of VSA-100 chips to produce X/4 amount of video cards? Nobody; it would be risking an insane loss of revenue, due to the sheer expense of the components. 3dfx saw this, and ditched the PCB part of their manufacturing process. By all definitions, they wussed out.
3dfx has lost touch with the new developments of the 3D world. All 3dfx cards could only output in 16-bit and use 256x256 textures until the release of the V5 last year (okay, the Voodoo3 processed at 32-bit, then blended down to 16, but that's not the same as pure 32!). 3dfx has ignored the innovations of cube environment mapping and dot-product bump mapping, both of which were used in Q3 and will be used in the next DOOM project.
To quote John Carmack on the issue of 3dfx: "It probably wouldn't be wise to buy a voodoo5 if you plan on keeping it for two years."
Oooohh, god forbid that it won't run in emacs or vim!
Please. Those two editors are the definition of bloatware. Notepad.exe is only 45KB, and it's a standalone program. How big is the entire Emacs package? At least 512KB, and probably more. Vim isn't much better.
...who is getting ".dot"? Rob would sure like to make it "http://slashdot.dot".
And what was with that company which wanted both ".kids" and ".sex"? That's a blatant case of pedophilia.
As far as the abuse of TLDs goes, I agree. Doubleclick.net should be doubleclick.com; since they only bog down sites with banner ads, they are providing a corporate disservice, rather than an Internet service. Collegeboard.org should be collegeboard.com; they're definitely making outrageous profits on test fees, penalties, and the like. And (I just know I'm gonna regret this soon, but I have to say it) Slashdot.org really should be slashdot.com; since the only non-profit organization associated with Slashdot are the users; the Slashdot core has turned for-profit ever since the Andover.net buyout. Hey, andover.net, there's another example!
All it has to do is render HTML and run Java/Javascript and a few other miscellanious things!
Netscape also includes a POP3/IMAP/SMTP e-mail client (Messenger), an HTML editor (Messenger), AOL Instant Messenger, and Netscape Radio. Furthermore, it also contains a buttload of Java classes for Navigator.
One funny thing: when I clicked on "New Msg", it scolded me for not having a valid e-mail address. Then, it told me: "Netscape is out of memory. Try quitting some other applications or closing some windows." This message appeared even though only 85 MB of 256 MB of physical RAM was used. BTW, this is Netscape version 4.76, so it might be even worse in 6.0. Boy, am I glad that this isn't my computer; I exclusively use IE and Outlook Express since they use MUCH less memory than Netscape does:
In the address field of your browser, type in "about:mozilla". In Netscape, you see this weird scripture:
"And the beast shall come forth surrounded by a roiling cloud of vengeance. The house of the unbelievers shall be razed and they shall be scorched to the earth. Their tags shall blink until the end of days.
from The Book of Mozilla, 12:10"
In Internet Explorer, going to "about:mozilla" results in a totally blank page with a blue (#000080) background, reminiscent of the BSOD. This is a pun at how Netscape crashes all the time.
Do this sometime: go into Q3DM12 (The Dredwerkz) and invite no bots (go alone). Jump onto the rocket platform with the door. Enter the hallway with the two doors, then stop and turn to look at the rocket launcer just as it closes. When you're there, with the door closed, type this into the console:
cg_drawFPS 1
Look at the top right corner; there should be a number with the current FPS reading. Take a note of it with the door closed. Now, walk up to the door so that it opens. The FPS rate should drop significantly. On my P3-500 320MB RAM with a GeForce 2, the reading is 90/45. My dual Voodoo2 on a Celery 466 with half as much RAM got around 45/23.
Back in my senior year of High School (okay, back in April 2000), I took my tower to school for an Astronomy demonstration. I wanted to demonstrate the environments of Venus and Mars. So, I fired up Q3 and went to Q3DM14 for Venus and Q3DM10 for Mars. I hooked up my computer to a projector which projected the image onto the 25-foot tall hemispheric planetarium dome. Everyone laughed when I dove into the Fog of Death.
Later that day, I hooked up the tower to a monitor and proceeded to play Q3 and Unreal Tournament during my study hall and PC Practicum class. My friend even tried out Q3 and a little Q2.
Now, if I had a laptop with the GF2Go in it, I could've carried 20 pounds less of equipment (I lugged around the tower, keyboard, and mouse; I found a monitor wherever I could). For E3/COMDEX reps, this means the difference between a good impression and a questionable impact.
"The biggest problem with their approach is that you can't lightmap stuff that's been destroyed."
Good point, and that's exactly why the lightmap concept is being abandoned soon. The next DOOM will do real-time lighting, as opposed to having the mapmaker do the lightmap compile and the player wait while the lightmap gets loaded. Red Faction might be real-time as well, though who knows right now?
One other thing: Id Software is doing all their work with the GeForce series on Windows 2000. John Carmack mentioned that before on one of the interviews, and in one of his.plan entries. Apparently, the GeForce will hold up fine while doing real-time light calculations (it must be tied into the vis process somehow; that's the only way to avoid an overload of light sources). The GeForce will play the next DOOM perfectly, as it was intended, while the ATI Radeon will be the runner up. Of course, 3dfx cards will make for nice screenshots, but the Voodoo5 series has little else in its favor.
"Moron Party: I'm such a complete idiot that, although I meant to vote for Gore, I was baffled by this extremely simple ballot. I am clearly too stupid to be included in the process of electing a president."
That's about the best use for a P4 without a board. Of course, I would wait for the first DDR chipset which would uphold a reliability reputation similar to that of the 82443BX (no significant driver revisions, can withstand 133MHz with proper cooling, et cetera). Of course, that probably won't be for another year, at which time Intel will finally violate their Rambus contract, or NVidia will release their chipset.
Other obsolete hardware uses: hard disk platters make great coasters, and the magnets inside make really strong refrigerator magnets.
Back in 1982, the 3D rendering scenes were relatively easy (16-bit untextured, average scene polycount of 600 I'm guessing). All that the computer had to do was compile a 24-fps scene, which probably took hours. In fact, the compilation process did get fudged up at one point: in the cross-fade between Tron looking at Sarc's destroyer and Flynn trying to drive the recognizer. In that cross-fade, the framerate drops by half, then shoots back up once the first scene was completely faded.
I wish that they'd release the source code to the Tron scenes; they might make great Quake maps, or maybe the movie could be recreated in Q3! That'd be pretty cool.
Currently, Volition is working on a first-person shooter game called Red Faction. The Geo-Mod engine features "real-time, arbitrary geometry modification" (you can blow up bridges and sniper towers, and they fall, completely unscripted! You can also fire the rocket launcher into the ground or at walls to create holes) and "Advanced physics simulation - supports falling geometry, particles and liquid" (you can blow holes in the ground next to a stream, and channel liquid into it!). This might be a control nightmare, but it looks promising. PC Gamer had a scoop on the game back in their August issue, but unfortunately, they don't archive on their website (at least for previews). I wouldn't expect to see this game released for another year; I foresee many control problems that may arise by having such a dynamic world created with everything unscripted.
Bump mapping can add texture to surfaces without increasing the polygon count. Take a look at the Lightning demo by NVidia (sorry, Win32 only). One of the options available is to turn on and off bump mapping. With bump mapping on, the NVidia logo looks embossed on the strike plate.
As for games which implement it, Q3 definitely does; Soldier of Fortune and Elite Force do; I'm not so sure about Unreal Tournament, but the original Unreal (think old-school, like Unreal 206/208 on a 3dfx card) had a feature like that in GLide: whenever you walked right up to a metal crate, it would have an electroplated, galvanized texture. The stone doors in Chizra's temple had an etched look. Perhaps this was done with multi-texturing as opposed to bump mapping (it worked on the Voodoo 2, which I don't think supported bump mapping); either way, it died out as soon as Tim Sweeney screwed around with original Unreal (replacing the weapon sounds with those from the then upcoming UT, screwing around with Steve Polge's bot code, fixing Direct3D, etc.)
Therefore, why complicate the scene by adding extra polygons for texture when it could all be done via bump mapping? Dented cobblestones on the ground, cracked wood planks, rusting stone; it can all be enhanced by bump mapping.
There have been numerous telecom companies who have tried marketing "pay-as-you-go" cell phone plans. You have to "refill" your phone with expensive "refill cards" which go for $99 per 250 minutes (with lower prices for lower denominations). No bills, no credit check, but there's always the threat of having the phone company cutting you off at the worst moment.
So far, AT&T and TRACFONE have tried this; AT&T recently shut down their program. Sprint is just starting theirs; endcap displays have arrived at many stores already (including my CompUSA).
Just a caveat: when purchasing a cell phone, get a bill. For an idea of what it's like to run out of cell phone time, type this into your Q3 console:
Slashdot Mirror
Now if we could only scrape up what's left of those other failed dot-coms. At least NetPliance gave us these neat-o socket 7 bare-bones systems with an LCD screen!
There are so many ways to cheat in Counter-Strike. From model changes to autoaim hacks to autoshoot hacks to the ASUS See-Through drivers, there are so many damned ways. Obviously, the see-through drivers were the worst, since they were hacked to work with any NVidia card. I have already proposed that all clients with the gl_vendor of Asus be banned outright from all servers (of course, this would spawn a desire to hack further into the drivers to change the gl_vendor, etc., etc.).
I used a John Carmack quote; your quote is a John Carmack quote. What a small world.
Okay, it had to be said. But how about if The Who regulates Woodstock 2019?
3dfx has lost touch with the new developments of the 3D world. All 3dfx cards could only output in 16-bit and use 256x256 textures until the release of the V5 last year (okay, the Voodoo3 processed at 32-bit, then blended down to 16, but that's not the same as pure 32!). 3dfx has ignored the innovations of cube environment mapping and dot-product bump mapping, both of which were used in Q3 and will be used in the next DOOM project.
To quote John Carmack on the issue of 3dfx: "It probably wouldn't be wise to buy a voodoo5 if you plan on keeping it for two years."
But there wasn't a manual with my dist...
"RTFM!"
But I can't even connect to...
"RTFM!"
But those "Dummies" books don't help too mu...
" R T F M !!"
Yes, but where does every hyperlink point to? Slashdot.org. Therefore, navigating to Slashdot.com is pointless.
Please. Those two editors are the definition of bloatware. Notepad.exe is only 45KB, and it's a standalone program. How big is the entire Emacs package? At least 512KB, and probably more. Vim isn't much better.
And what was with that company which wanted both ".kids" and ".sex"? That's a blatant case of pedophilia.
As far as the abuse of TLDs goes, I agree. Doubleclick.net should be doubleclick.com; since they only bog down sites with banner ads, they are providing a corporate disservice, rather than an Internet service. Collegeboard.org should be collegeboard.com; they're definitely making outrageous profits on test fees, penalties, and the like. And (I just know I'm gonna regret this soon, but I have to say it) Slashdot.org really should be slashdot.com; since the only non-profit organization associated with Slashdot are the users; the Slashdot core has turned for-profit ever since the Andover.net buyout. Hey, andover.net, there's another example!
Netscape also includes a POP3/IMAP/SMTP e-mail client (Messenger), an HTML editor (Messenger), AOL Instant Messenger, and Netscape Radio. Furthermore, it also contains a buttload of Java classes for Navigator.
One funny thing: when I clicked on "New Msg", it scolded me for not having a valid e-mail address. Then, it told me: "Netscape is out of memory. Try quitting some other applications or closing some windows." This message appeared even though only 85 MB of 256 MB of physical RAM was used. BTW, this is Netscape version 4.76, so it might be even worse in 6.0. Boy, am I glad that this isn't my computer; I exclusively use IE and Outlook Express since they use MUCH less memory than Netscape does:
netscape.exe: 10448 K
IEXPLORE.EXE: 1752 K
Memory Usage: IE
Time to execute (time between execution and viable appearance of the window): IE
Java features: Netscape
Java speed: IE (they did tweak Java for speed and stability when they made Microsoft VM)
HTML Source options: IE (IE opens the source in Notepad; Netscape just shows it to you)
Minimum of invasive advertising: IE (Netscape installs the AOL icon by default; at least IE doesn't hawk MSN on its users)
Stability: IE
So the winner in functionality is IE; however, use what you like; browsers ARE a matter of personal preference.
Will the "map of the World Wide Web" be redone in VRML? Will it be displayed on a 2048x2048x2048 voxel display unit?
"And the beast shall come forth surrounded by a roiling cloud of vengeance. The house of the unbelievers shall be razed and they shall be scorched to the earth. Their tags shall blink until the end of days.
from The Book of Mozilla, 12:10"
In Internet Explorer, going to "about:mozilla" results in a totally blank page with a blue (#000080) background, reminiscent of the BSOD. This is a pun at how Netscape crashes all the time.
Look at the top right corner; there should be a number with the current FPS reading. Take a note of it with the door closed. Now, walk up to the door so that it opens. The FPS rate should drop significantly. On my P3-500 320MB RAM with a GeForce 2, the reading is 90/45. My dual Voodoo2 on a Celery 466 with half as much RAM got around 45/23.
Actually, the Voodoo3 2000 had a fillrate of 286 megatexels. That's probably why it rings a bell. I don't mean to steal your thunder, but it's true.
Later that day, I hooked up the tower to a monitor and proceeded to play Q3 and Unreal Tournament during my study hall and PC Practicum class. My friend even tried out Q3 and a little Q2.
Now, if I had a laptop with the GF2Go in it, I could've carried 20 pounds less of equipment (I lugged around the tower, keyboard, and mouse; I found a monitor wherever I could). For E3/COMDEX reps, this means the difference between a good impression and a questionable impact.
The GeForce 2 MX. It comes in PCI and AGP, with SDR and DDR memory. But seriously, the GF2GTS is worth it.
Good point, and that's exactly why the lightmap concept is being abandoned soon. The next DOOM will do real-time lighting, as opposed to having the mapmaker do the lightmap compile and the player wait while the lightmap gets loaded. Red Faction might be real-time as well, though who knows right now?
One other thing: Id Software is doing all their work with the GeForce series on Windows 2000. John Carmack mentioned that before on one of the interviews, and in one of his .plan entries. Apparently, the GeForce will hold up fine while doing real-time light calculations (it must be tied into the vis process somehow; that's the only way to avoid an overload of light sources). The GeForce will play the next DOOM perfectly, as it was intended, while the ATI Radeon will be the runner up. Of course, 3dfx cards will make for nice screenshots, but the Voodoo5 series has little else in its favor.
Don't strain your eyes too much; hole 4 reads:
"Moron Party: I'm such a complete idiot that, although I meant to vote for Gore, I was baffled by this extremely simple ballot. I am clearly too stupid to be included in the process of electing a president."
Other obsolete hardware uses: hard disk platters make great coasters, and the magnets inside make really strong refrigerator magnets.
I wish that they'd release the source code to the Tron scenes; they might make great Quake maps, or maybe the movie could be recreated in Q3! That'd be pretty cool.
Currently, Volition is working on a first-person shooter game called Red Faction. The Geo-Mod engine features "real-time, arbitrary geometry modification" (you can blow up bridges and sniper towers, and they fall, completely unscripted! You can also fire the rocket launcher into the ground or at walls to create holes) and "Advanced physics simulation - supports falling geometry, particles and liquid" (you can blow holes in the ground next to a stream, and channel liquid into it!). This might be a control nightmare, but it looks promising. PC Gamer had a scoop on the game back in their August issue, but unfortunately, they don't archive on their website (at least for previews). I wouldn't expect to see this game released for another year; I foresee many control problems that may arise by having such a dynamic world created with everything unscripted.
As for games which implement it, Q3 definitely does; Soldier of Fortune and Elite Force do; I'm not so sure about Unreal Tournament, but the original Unreal (think old-school, like Unreal 206/208 on a 3dfx card) had a feature like that in GLide: whenever you walked right up to a metal crate, it would have an electroplated, galvanized texture. The stone doors in Chizra's temple had an etched look. Perhaps this was done with multi-texturing as opposed to bump mapping (it worked on the Voodoo 2, which I don't think supported bump mapping); either way, it died out as soon as Tim Sweeney screwed around with original Unreal (replacing the weapon sounds with those from the then upcoming UT, screwing around with Steve Polge's bot code, fixing Direct3D, etc.)
Therefore, why complicate the scene by adding extra polygons for texture when it could all be done via bump mapping? Dented cobblestones on the ground, cracked wood planks, rusting stone; it can all be enhanced by bump mapping.
So far, AT&T and TRACFONE have tried this; AT&T recently shut down their program. Sprint is just starting theirs; endcap displays have arrived at many stores already (including my CompUSA).
Just a caveat: when purchasing a cell phone, get a bill. For an idea of what it's like to run out of cell phone time, type this into your Q3 console: