Game engines consist of a whole bunch of components including but not limited to:
graphics
ai
networking
database
physics
IO
So you're question is much to general. But to answer your question anyway. Get books by Dave Eberly . 3D Game Engine Design is quite good, even though it is kinda slanted towards the scene graph methodology of feeding the graphics card. Geometric Tools for Computer Graphics is a great mathematical reference book, but I'm kinda biased since I was a tech editor for the book. Game Physics is supposed to be quite good, but I haven't read it.
In terms of graphics get the OpenGL redbook and bluebook. Realtime Rendering is quite good. And everybody who is anybody in computer graphics has Computer Graphics: Principle & Practices. The Game Programming Gems series is quite good too.
Other than that, the best way to learn to code is to read through code. id has GPL'd a bunch of their old engines. And the Torque engine is available for about $100.
a) there is some way of telling John Smith of Quebec from John Smith of Vancouver
Social Insurance Numbers
b) a substantial enough percentage of Canadians have access to the internet to make this not a waste of time and money.
Don't have exact numbers, but Canada has one of the highest per capita rates of Internet connection. The reason being that there is cheap access to high-speed and this has a trickle-down effect into dialup.
Currently, I have the choice to get ADSL through Telus or Sprint or Cable through Shaw for $35CDN/month. And all of the ISPs regularily have deals where they will give the modem away for free and subscription rates as low as $20/month for the first 6 months. Shaw offers a "light" high-speed package for about $20/month.
I use this method all the time. I agree totally with this. The other thing to do is leave a very short greeting message. Mine is:
"Hi this is 'Probably yo daddy'. Please leave a message."
What happens is that telemarketers use a machine that dials. The machine dials a whole bunch of numbers. When someone picks up on the other end, the machine connects a telemarketer to your call. If you leave a short message, the message is over before the telemarketer is connected. The telemarketer doesn't hear anything and assumes the number is not in service and removes your number from their list.
On top of this all, not answering your phone is great for increasing efficiency. Answer calls when your ready, not when they arrive. This gives you time to prepare info that is required to answer the call. Plus you can do it when you are compiling code or downloading pr0n^H^H^H^H large files.
Visual C++ produces win32/x86 code. But, you don't wannna spend money getting VC++. Not even the educational version that comes pretty cheap. So why can't you use any other compiler that produces win32/x86 code? Such as say, gcc.
There's sample apps that come with the SDK. Why don't you try to compile it with gcc.
At the expense of sounding like a troll. It seems you haven't done your homework. Google is your friend. Usenet is your friend. Such as this thread
There is just no need for a fast 3d card because it is for work, not for games.
That's starting to become untrue. How about Jaguar and it's double buffered desktop? When the Windows and Linux guys decide to bring inovation to the desktop, you'll need more memory to render your desktop.
How about alpha-blended menus and windows?
How about enough memory to run 16 desktops at the same time? How about throwing some of that data onto the video card rather than RAM.
How about being able to run your desktop at 1600x1200x32? It's nice being able to see 3 different word processor documents at the same time.
How about multimedia playback? Have decompression and rendering take place completely on the graphics card.
A video card that would be great for business is different than a video card that is great for games. That's part of the reason we don't see inovation in the desktop department. Everyone is still running onboard video cards with 4MB of RAM.
1600x1200x32 ~ 7.5MB. Double that amount if you want to double buffer your desktop.
If you have a degree, any degree, you are a shoe-in for a job to teach english in japan. I have a whole bunch of friends that teach english in japan, korea, etc.
It's never black and white with anything. Do video games cause all kids to commit violent acts? No. Do some video games cause some kids to commit violent acts? Probably.
Video games cause kids to commit violent acts. What a bunch of crap. At the end of the day, you and you alone are responsible for your actions. If you choose to stick a pencil in your neighbours neck, that was your choice.
You could argue otherwise due to insanity, but that's a whole different issue.
You could also argue that people who play video games are more likely to choose to pencil their neighbours. But that is still their choice. This whole A causes B stuff is crap. Because between every A and B there is a person making a choice.
It's entirely possible to install almost every version of Linux on one machine... However, I decided to stop at around 10 versions because any more seemed redundant.
That's a little bit of an understatement. So how many version of Windows before it starts getting redundant?
It looks like all the big distros have got gcc3.2 packaged. Which would be one of the big reasons at this point in time to pick up one of the newer distros. I've been burned by gcc2.9x a bunch of times. Personally, I'm waiting for the next version of Gentoo for my next distro (Currently running RedHat7.3). RPM has just become a bother.
So it comes down to either wait 8 hours for it to compile (portage), or wait 8 hours to figure out the dependencies (rpm), or wait 8 months for someone to package it (deb).
Yeah, the Labour Relations Board is definitely the way to go. Despite the fact that the Liberal government raped their funding. But that's another rant for another time.
Back to the original askslashdot. He says he wants his severance package. The company says you won't get it unless you sign certain papers.
If your original contract says you are entitled to a severance package and it doesn't state anything about "certain papers", then I don't see the problem. Both parties should be legally bound to the original contract and it's just a matter of sorting it out at the LBR if the company throws a hissy-fit.
But, IANAL.
If you are laid off, the bottom line is DON'T SIGN ANYTHING. Even if the document asks you to if you wear boxers or briefs (especially if the document asks you if you wear boxers or briefs). Human Resources & Development Canada (HDRC) will send you some paper work. You sign up for unemployment insurance and start lookin for another job.
If the company refuses to grant you your severance take it to the LRB.
I have received my papers and they are simply dragonian!
Hey, at least you got a dragon out of the whole deal.
Usenet has kinda degenerated into a big poo-poo platter over the last few years. But sometimes you can find great groups there. Almost every Ask Slashdot could have been answered a whole lot better in the right newsgroup.
I've subscribed to a whole bunch of mailing lists. The sourceforge mailing lists in particular are great. I'm currently a member of the gdalgorithms list. I learn new things every day.
I've written tons of drivers for little components like that. It shouldn't be too hard to do. The software on top of the driver is another story. It might take a while to implement depending on the feature set required.
Can someone who has installed the drivers please spit out a glxinfo? (I am assuming there is a glxinfo for BSD. I am far from a BSD expert.) I want to know how difficult it would be for my game to support FreeBSD. The problems I've been having is that GL_ARB_vertex_program is not supported on Linux yet with the 3123 drivers that were just released.
And guess who in driver department is asleep at the wheel again coughATIcough.
GD: For one year, we had a so-called "World Class Management" team that left us in a very bad financial situation, and engaged the company in ventures (such as e-learning) that we should never have been involved with. But that's all part of our history now, so I'd prefer to not dwell too much on that.
The above quote is the answer to one question out of about a dozen. 3 lines out of a 150 line article. And is misrepresenative of the article. Duval answers the question and moves on. He tries not to bitch, he tries not to complain. What's this "I love X distro, Mandrake sucks!" crap?
I mod this Slashdot story -1 Troll. Despite the fact it was a decent interview.
If you don't use Mandrake that's fine. Is it kind of a Newbie-Linux distro? You could argue that. It was the first distro I used.
There is place in the Linux-world for as many distros as anyone wants to put out. Deal with it.
That's what I'm using at the moment. I use a cron job to throw all my important directories into my repository every night. Then I burn it onto an RW.
This works because I don't throw my mp3/ogg, pr0n, etc into the repository. I'll have to figure out a new solution when I hit the 650MB/800MB limit, but it works for now. I'll probably just have my repository on a different computer and use ssh or a get another HD speciffically for backup purposes.
I started using this system after reading the Pragmatic Programmer. They recommend throwing using CVS for everything that is important. It's great for more than just code. And this way, whenever I install a new distro, I have all my settings since I save my.emacs,.mozilla,.kde,.etc directories.
A lead Nvidia hardware guy came and gave a talk at our university. I asked him whether Nvidia preferred using DirectX over OpenGL because of more supported features in DX8 vs OGL 1.x, and he surprised me by saying that, no, in fact they significantly preferred OGL.
That's a pretty blanket statement and not totally accurate. Most nVidia employees that are former SGI employees usually prefer OpenGL, for obvious reasons. As a company they might like being able to spit out OpenGL extensions rather than wait for MS to spit out another rev of D3D.
But nVidia employees are people too. They have personal preferences. These are usually based on experience with a tool or API, not because the tool or API is better.
Which makes most religious wars pointless: ogl vs d3d, emacs vs vi, c vs c++, gnome vs kde, IE vs mozilla.
Okay maybe that last one is pushing it.
Personally I prefer using OGL because it is a stable, cross-platform API and because I have experience with it. Not because it is magically "better" than D3D. Sure it took MS 8 versions to figure it out, but OGL and D3D are pretty equivalent from a programmers point of view (if you're working on Windoze).
I have used WebCT here at SFU. It alright, but nothing special. It's not that much better than a solution that you could put together yourself.
Set yourself up with a webserver with httpd, irc, a maillist server, and a newserver. Then you have what is equivalent to webct. You can even get around the newserver by using a discussion board.
You will need to deal with security issues if you want your students to be able to check grades online. There are other security issues as well. I've been on a few maillists that got signed up to pr0n lists. This weren't webct lists though. Since webct uses a webmail type interface where only other members of the class can send mail to.
So, the question to ask yourself is: What will cost you more? Getting some monkey to set up standard software for you or shelling out some cash so that WebCT can set up proprietary software for you. Don't forget the maintainence costs.
If I were you and I'd have the IT department at your school set everything up for you. Use http for all the general stuff. Let people post questions to a discussion board. And hold tutorials over irc. Use the maillist for announcements.
Take a cue from nVidia. They have a great developer site. Great code samples, demos, papers. They are accesible to the public. You can catch them on a whole bunch of discussion boards and email lists around the net. They respond to problems if you send an email.
Not to mention they provide great drivers for both Windows and Linux. There is a CVS repository you can download other great stuff from. They support open standards such as OpenGL (we won't mention the whole Cg fiasco...I mean nothing).
Now compare that to the competition.
Disclaimer: I do not work for nVidia, nor own any stock.
Whether you likeit or not, if you wanna make big bucks from sitting in front of a computer, Waterloo happens to be the best choice.
That happens to be a very Ontario-centric, Toronto is the centre of the universe opinion. (Even though Waterloo is not in Toronto) Outside of Ontario, the opinion of Waterloo is that it has a very good graduate program, but its undergrad program puts out spagetti coders.
If your looking for an undergrad, take a look into UofC, or SFU. SFU has a coop program just as good as Waterloo, if not better.
If you're looking for a graduate school, you wanna school with a prof that works with stuff you are interested in. And a bigger school, such as UBC or UofT, that throws a lot of money at research. (Which sometimes involves selling your soul to the devil)
But you state you wanna go to Waterloo so you can make big bucks. Here's a little tip. Do what you like. If you like it, you will be good at it. If you're good at it, then you'll make money.
But if you wanna just make the big bucks, go to Waterloo. You and MS will make a great couple.
Slashdot Mirror
graphics
ai
networking
database
physics
IO
So you're question is much to general. But to answer your question anyway. Get books by Dave Eberly . 3D Game Engine Design is quite good, even though it is kinda slanted towards the scene graph methodology of feeding the graphics card. Geometric Tools for Computer Graphics is a great mathematical reference book, but I'm kinda biased since I was a tech editor for the book. Game Physics is supposed to be quite good, but I haven't read it.
In terms of graphics get the OpenGL redbook and bluebook. Realtime Rendering is quite good. And everybody who is anybody in computer graphics has Computer Graphics: Principle & Practices. The Game Programming Gems series is quite good too.
Other than that, the best way to learn to code is to read through code. id has GPL'd a bunch of their old engines. And the Torque engine is available for about $100.
That should keep you busy for a while.
Social Insurance Numbers
b) a substantial enough percentage of Canadians have access to the internet to make this not a waste of time and money.
Don't have exact numbers, but Canada has one of the highest per capita rates of Internet connection. The reason being that there is cheap access to high-speed and this has a trickle-down effect into dialup.
Currently, I have the choice to get ADSL through Telus or Sprint or Cable through Shaw for $35CDN/month. And all of the ISPs regularily have deals where they will give the modem away for free and subscription rates as low as $20/month for the first 6 months. Shaw offers a "light" high-speed package for about $20/month.
Dialup is even cheaper.
"Hi this is 'Probably yo daddy'. Please leave a message."
What happens is that telemarketers use a machine that dials. The machine dials a whole bunch of numbers. When someone picks up on the other end, the machine connects a telemarketer to your call. If you leave a short message, the message is over before the telemarketer is connected. The telemarketer doesn't hear anything and assumes the number is not in service and removes your number from their list.
On top of this all, not answering your phone is great for increasing efficiency. Answer calls when your ready, not when they arrive. This gives you time to prepare info that is required to answer the call. Plus you can do it when you are compiling code or downloading pr0n^H^H^H^H large files.
I use this technique for email too.
Visual C++ produces win32/x86 code. But, you don't wannna spend money getting VC++. Not even the educational version that comes pretty cheap. So why can't you use any other compiler that produces win32/x86 code? Such as say, gcc.
There's sample apps that come with the SDK. Why don't you try to compile it with gcc.
At the expense of sounding like a troll. It seems you haven't done your homework. Google is your friend. Usenet is your friend. Such as this thread
That's starting to become untrue. How about Jaguar and it's double buffered desktop? When the Windows and Linux guys decide to bring inovation to the desktop, you'll need more memory to render your desktop.
How about alpha-blended menus and windows?
How about enough memory to run 16 desktops at the same time? How about throwing some of that data onto the video card rather than RAM.
How about being able to run your desktop at 1600x1200x32? It's nice being able to see 3 different word processor documents at the same time.
How about multimedia playback? Have decompression and rendering take place completely on the graphics card.
A video card that would be great for business is different than a video card that is great for games. That's part of the reason we don't see inovation in the desktop department. Everyone is still running onboard video cards with 4MB of RAM.
1600x1200x32 ~ 7.5MB. Double that amount if you want to double buffer your desktop.
A quick google search to get you started.
Video games cause kids to commit violent acts. What a bunch of crap. At the end of the day, you and you alone are responsible for your actions. If you choose to stick a pencil in your neighbours neck, that was your choice.
You could argue otherwise due to insanity, but that's a whole different issue.
You could also argue that people who play video games are more likely to choose to pencil their neighbours. But that is still their choice. This whole A causes B stuff is crap. Because between every A and B there is a person making a choice.
Modifier? I don't even know her!
(Rimshot)
That's a little bit of an understatement. So how many version of Windows before it starts getting redundant?
So it comes down to either wait 8 hours for it to compile (portage), or wait 8 hours to figure out the dependencies (rpm), or wait 8 months for someone to package it (deb).
Back to the original askslashdot. He says he wants his severance package. The company says you won't get it unless you sign certain papers.
If your original contract says you are entitled to a severance package and it doesn't state anything about "certain papers", then I don't see the problem. Both parties should be legally bound to the original contract and it's just a matter of sorting it out at the LBR if the company throws a hissy-fit.
But, IANAL.
If you are laid off, the bottom line is DON'T SIGN ANYTHING. Even if the document asks you to if you wear boxers or briefs (especially if the document asks you if you wear boxers or briefs). Human Resources & Development Canada (HDRC) will send you some paper work. You sign up for unemployment insurance and start lookin for another job.
If the company refuses to grant you your severance take it to the LRB.
I have received my papers and they are simply dragonian!
Hey, at least you got a dragon out of the whole deal.
I've subscribed to a whole bunch of mailing lists. The sourceforge mailing lists in particular are great. I'm currently a member of the gdalgorithms list. I learn new things every day.
nVidia's newest Linux drivers claim to support up to 16 monitors. I'm not sure of the performance though.
I've written tons of drivers for little components like that. It shouldn't be too hard to do. The software on top of the driver is another story. It might take a while to implement depending on the feature set required.
And guess who in driver department is asleep at the wheel again coughATIcough.
The one thing about the Matrix was that I was expecting him to break into air guitar during every scene.
Seriously, if you like math, get your math degree. Don't do it because you'll make X amount of more money.
If you like something, then you'll be good at it. If you're good at it, then you'll make money.
And if you want to go to grad school, can you handle working on math stuff for another 2-4 years...and enjoy it? It's your life.
The above quote is the answer to one question out of about a dozen. 3 lines out of a 150 line article. And is misrepresenative of the article. Duval answers the question and moves on. He tries not to bitch, he tries not to complain. What's this "I love X distro, Mandrake sucks!" crap?
I mod this Slashdot story -1 Troll. Despite the fact it was a decent interview.
If you don't use Mandrake that's fine. Is it kind of a Newbie-Linux distro? You could argue that. It was the first distro I used.
There is place in the Linux-world for as many distros as anyone wants to put out. Deal with it.
This works because I don't throw my mp3/ogg, pr0n, etc into the repository. I'll have to figure out a new solution when I hit the 650MB/800MB limit, but it works for now. I'll probably just have my repository on a different computer and use ssh or a get another HD speciffically for backup purposes.
I started using this system after reading the Pragmatic Programmer. They recommend throwing using CVS for everything that is important. It's great for more than just code. And this way, whenever I install a new distro, I have all my settings since I save my .emacs, .mozilla, .kde, .etc directories.
That's a pretty blanket statement and not totally accurate. Most nVidia employees that are former SGI employees usually prefer OpenGL, for obvious reasons. As a company they might like being able to spit out OpenGL extensions rather than wait for MS to spit out another rev of D3D.
But nVidia employees are people too. They have personal preferences. These are usually based on experience with a tool or API, not because the tool or API is better.
Which makes most religious wars pointless: ogl vs d3d, emacs vs vi, c vs c++, gnome vs kde, IE vs mozilla.
Okay maybe that last one is pushing it.
Personally I prefer using OGL because it is a stable, cross-platform API and because I have experience with it. Not because it is magically "better" than D3D. Sure it took MS 8 versions to figure it out, but OGL and D3D are pretty equivalent from a programmers point of view (if you're working on Windoze).
Set yourself up with a webserver with httpd, irc, a maillist server, and a newserver. Then you have what is equivalent to webct. You can even get around the newserver by using a discussion board.
You will need to deal with security issues if you want your students to be able to check grades online. There are other security issues as well. I've been on a few maillists that got signed up to pr0n lists. This weren't webct lists though. Since webct uses a webmail type interface where only other members of the class can send mail to.
So, the question to ask yourself is: What will cost you more? Getting some monkey to set up standard software for you or shelling out some cash so that WebCT can set up proprietary software for you. Don't forget the maintainence costs.
If I were you and I'd have the IT department at your school set everything up for you. Use http for all the general stuff. Let people post questions to a discussion board. And hold tutorials over irc. Use the maillist for announcements.
Not to mention they provide great drivers for both Windows and Linux. There is a CVS repository you can download other great stuff from. They support open standards such as OpenGL (we won't mention the whole Cg fiasco...I mean nothing).
Now compare that to the competition.
Disclaimer: I do not work for nVidia, nor own any stock.
regular arcade machines
dance, dance revolution for the "chicks"
internet cafe type of access
bagels and mochas for the foo-foo poo-poo types
That happens to be a very Ontario-centric, Toronto is the centre of the universe opinion. (Even though Waterloo is not in Toronto) Outside of Ontario, the opinion of Waterloo is that it has a very good graduate program, but its undergrad program puts out spagetti coders.
If your looking for an undergrad, take a look into UofC, or SFU. SFU has a coop program just as good as Waterloo, if not better.
If you're looking for a graduate school, you wanna school with a prof that works with stuff you are interested in. And a bigger school, such as UBC or UofT, that throws a lot of money at research. (Which sometimes involves selling your soul to the devil)
But you state you wanna go to Waterloo so you can make big bucks. Here's a little tip. Do what you like. If you like it, you will be good at it. If you're good at it, then you'll make money.
But if you wanna just make the big bucks, go to Waterloo. You and MS will make a great couple.
Maybe they'll throw JonKatz in jail. Well a geek can hope can't he?
Yeah, I know this is a troll. But I have karma to burn. And if I'm gonna burn karma, I can't think of a better way than by trolling JonKatz.