Something the article could have mentioned was how memory analysis tools fail on large games. I tried using every memory management tool I could find (e.g. BoundsChecker, Purify, etc.) on our million line and > million concurrent allocations game and they all failed (usually with crashes or hangs), crumbling under the weight of the application and their own limitations. The closest to succeed was Purify which would sometimes work but when it did it was so slow that the game took an hour just to start up under it and ran at a completely unusable rate when it did get started.
And how do you know that they aren't already using these "very simple" ways to reduce build time? Don't you think that they might in fact be very interested in reducing build times?
As for third party suppliers springing up who do nothing but build game engines, such things exist and if you want your game to look just like everybody else's game, then I suggest you buy from one of these companies. Another reason game houses often build things from scratch is that they want/need to wring every bit of performance out of crappy machines like the PS2 that they can, and generic systems written to work for everybody just can't do that.
The above message is scored as "funny" and while it may seem funny, it's entirely true. Why else do laundry detergent makers put "new and improved" stickers on their boxes every few months?
First of all, any change whatsoever in header files trigger rebuilds, not just public interfaces. Secondly, core headers in theory would perhaps be fixed early on, but in practice that's just plain impossible. I can spend a lot of time here trying to explain how that comes about, but it's not worth the effort unless this message got a decent score. Suffice it to say that it's simply impossible to see into the future and know exactly how any header file really needs to be when it's finished.
I can see the denial of service attacks already: hundreds of computers all direct bots to get the same book, with the result being a crowded and deadlocked hallway of stuck robots.
They forgot the flight simulator genre. It is pretty much on life support at this time. Just five years ago, Microsoft flight simulator was a constant top ten PC game. No flight sim has been popular for years and no new major flight sims are on the horizon. Perhaps one might argue that flight sim is similar to space shooter, which was number 10 on the list.
You state that you worked at EA/Maxis. Well that's not right because you worked in Tech Support. I know this because your previous posting history indicates so. Maxis doesn't have a Tech Support department; EA does tech support. Maxis doesn't treat their employees poorly, as you suggest. Employees there work hard, but get rewarded well. You are confusing your job at EA with an actual job at Maxis. These are two different things. So please don't state that you worked at Maxis when you didn't. By the way, I work at Maxis.
Re:Alcohol and Cigarettes and harmful
on
Google vs. Evil
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· Score: 0
When you go to the electronics store, how many companies are represented by the TVs sold there? Probably less than ten.
When you go to the supermarket, how many companies are represented by the laundry detergent sold there? Probably less than ten.
When you go to store and buy beer, how many companies are represented by the beer sold there? Probably less than ten.
When you go to the store and buy video games, how manyt companies are represented by the games sold there? Probably more than 30 and as much as 50 or more.
My question is not about why so many game companies fail, but how it is that so many succeed? It's a major production to build a large A-level game these days and it's surprising that so many weaker companies (in terms of finances and management quality) can get a shipping game put together at all.
I hate it when somebody on slashdot posts a perfectly fine response and it gets labeled as "Flamebait" just because it doesn't take a pro-hacker, pro-linux or anti-Microsoft stance. That just shows the immaturity we have here.
Nobody has mentioned this, but it seems to me that out of phase dual-pendulums connected by to the same structure have existed long before Huygens' clock: The human body with two arms!
Each of your arms strongly tends to swing out of sync with the other. If your arms were very tiny, this wouldn't happen and if they were gigantic, it wouldn't happen either. This was observed and no doubt pondered thousands of years before Huygens' did the same thing with clocks.
All I want from OpenGL is the ability to save and restore portions of the color and depth buffers offscreen and be able to restore portions of them. This is easy in DirectX, yet is absolutely impossible with OpenGL and no extension exists that does it.
The closest thing OpenGL has is the KTX_BUFFER_REGION extension, but unfortunately that extension's specification is broken; it fails to allow this feature properly because it says that any copy operation can erase data from previous copy operations -- totally freakin stupid.
Games show less innovation than Hollywood CG because games have much different constraints.
Most importantly, if you want to make money on a game, it's going to have to work on a large number of users' machines. This means writing for a lower common denominator.
Also, even games that can rely on better hardware like Quake still have to put 60FPS at a much higher priority than fancy graphics.
Lastly, the gameplay of a game actually takes a lot more effort and attention than the graphics engine. Coordinating complex gameplay and comprex graphics is a very difficult problem when you're trying to make money in this cutthroat business.
Lastly, I would hardly call ID innovative; I can't speak for Bioware.
Slashdot Mirror
Since when is SMTP the problem. With all the owned machines out there, nothing you could do to change the protocol would fix the problem by itself.
Something the article could have mentioned was how memory analysis tools fail on large games. I tried using every memory management tool I could find (e.g. BoundsChecker, Purify, etc.) on our million line and > million concurrent allocations game and they all failed (usually with crashes or hangs), crumbling under the weight of the application and their own limitations. The closest to succeed was Purify which would sometimes work but when it did it was so slow that the game took an hour just to start up under it and ran at a completely unusable rate when it did get started.
And how do you know that they aren't already using these "very simple" ways to reduce build time? Don't you think that they might in fact be very interested in reducing build times?
As for third party suppliers springing up who do nothing but build game engines, such things exist and if you want your game to look just like everybody else's game, then I suggest you buy from one of these companies. Another reason game houses often build things from scratch is that they want/need to wring every bit of performance out of crappy machines like the PS2 that they can, and generic systems written to work for everybody just can't do that.
The above message is scored as "funny" and while it may seem funny, it's entirely true. Why else do laundry detergent makers put "new and improved" stickers on their boxes every few months?
First of all, any change whatsoever in header files trigger rebuilds, not just public interfaces. Secondly, core headers in theory would perhaps be fixed early on, but in practice that's just plain impossible. I can spend a lot of time here trying to explain how that comes about, but it's not worth the effort unless this message got a decent score. Suffice it to say that it's simply impossible to see into the future and know exactly how any header file really needs to be when it's finished.
I can see the denial of service attacks already: hundreds of computers all direct bots to get the same book, with the result being a crowded and deadlocked hallway of stuck robots.
You are right, that wouldn't work. But this would: http://ppedriana.homeip.net/blog/SpamScreensaver.h tml
Only true spam sites would be on the list.
Better yet, how about this: http://ppedriana.homeip.net/blog/SpamScreensaver.h tml
My solution: The anti-spam screensaver
They forgot the flight simulator genre. It is pretty much on life support at this time. Just five years ago, Microsoft flight simulator was a constant top ten PC game. No flight sim has been popular for years and no new major flight sims are on the horizon. Perhaps one might argue that flight sim is similar to space shooter, which was number 10 on the list.
You state that you worked at EA/Maxis. Well that's not right because you worked in Tech Support. I know this because your previous posting history indicates so. Maxis doesn't have a Tech Support department; EA does tech support. Maxis doesn't treat their employees poorly, as you suggest. Employees there work hard, but get rewarded well. You are confusing your job at EA with an actual job at Maxis. These are two different things. So please don't state that you worked at Maxis when you didn't. By the way, I work at Maxis.
How often do you get alcohol or cigarette spam?
>>AFAIK, all EA's games use it.
AFAIK, no EA games use it. And I am a programmer for EA.
Why do game companies fail?
When you go to the electronics store, how many companies are represented by the TVs sold there? Probably less than ten.
When you go to the supermarket, how many companies are represented by the laundry detergent sold there? Probably less than ten.
When you go to store and buy beer, how many companies are represented by the beer sold there? Probably less than ten.
When you go to the store and buy video games, how manyt companies are represented by the games sold there? Probably more than 30 and as much as 50 or more.
My question is not about why so many game companies fail, but how it is that so many succeed? It's a major production to build a large A-level game these days and it's surprising that so many weaker companies (in terms of finances and management quality) can get a shipping game put together at all.
I hate it when somebody on slashdot posts a perfectly fine response and it gets labeled as "Flamebait" just because it doesn't take a pro-hacker, pro-linux or anti-Microsoft stance. That just shows the immaturity we have here.
Nobody has mentioned this, but it seems to me that out of phase dual-pendulums connected by to the same structure have existed long before Huygens' clock: The human body with two arms!
Each of your arms strongly tends to swing out of sync with the other. If your arms were very tiny, this wouldn't happen and if they were gigantic, it wouldn't happen either. This was observed and no doubt pondered thousands of years before Huygens' did the same thing with clocks.
Whoops. I didn't mean to say that. Moya is a she. I was thinking Pilot. If they'd put the show back on I wouldn't get so cloudy about it!
Moya is a he, not a she.
The closest thing OpenGL has is the KTX_BUFFER_REGION extension, but unfortunately that extension's specification is broken; it fails to allow this feature properly because it says that any copy operation can erase data from previous copy operations -- totally freakin stupid.
Games show less innovation than Hollywood CG because games have much different constraints.
Most importantly, if you want to make money on a game, it's going to have to work on a large number of users' machines. This means writing for a lower common denominator.
Also, even games that can rely on better hardware like Quake still have to put 60FPS at a much higher priority than fancy graphics.
Lastly, the gameplay of a game actually takes a lot more effort and attention than the graphics engine. Coordinating complex gameplay and comprex graphics is a very difficult problem when you're trying to make money in this cutthroat business.
Lastly, I would hardly call ID innovative; I can't speak for Bioware.