"Due to genetic constraints, the final mammoth specimen will only be 88% pure mammoth and the process will take about 50 years"
Considering that apes, baboons and the like are closer than this to humans (something like over 90% I believe?), will this just be an echo from the past? Meaning the remaining 12% might make such a huge difference that the creation would be more like a new species than a reincarnation.
First of all, I think most of the issues with porting Doom III to XBox deal with the (much much) smaller memory available (64megs for code, data and textures) and getting it running smoothly.
And secondly, I don't think the XBox port will come out of id's own pockets, as Doom III will be one (major) selling and marketing factor for the XBox.
Why should every screenshot released from a game thats under development be somehow visually and aesthetically more superior than the last? At least if this happened, I would be really scared as I don't think that advances come at such rate (which means they are playing the media & audience).
When you are playing the game, you are sure to like some areas, monsters and levels more than others. Some show good design on gameplay, some show visually pleasing effects etc. Overall score is still the one that matters (or "the game sucks because one texture they used in one pilar was blocky").
Of course, not all spending on the IT industry means exactly the same thing. For one entity it might mean hiring a lot of administrators, for other one it might mean hiring a suitable user support and for some it might mean developing new software.
As with any business, any transaction must be weighted. Sure, moving from ordinary typewriters into MS Word desktop computers has saved a lot of $$$ (as soon as the workers were well educated in the manner). And yes, moving from MS Word into a newer MS Word might not boost your revenue as much, but if it will save some 5 minutes/worker/day, don't you think it's worth something like $500/worker (one time)? That is, if you have 10 workers, you have saved well over 16 hours of payed working time in a month.
Sure, most of IT spending has been on whatnot, and some are structural spending, allowing improvement on other aspects. So yes, software is a lot more expensive than something like a fridge (which has solid working conditions, good engineer grap over all aspects and many many years of development time). At the end the question is still how much it costs.
And yeah, maybe that 5 minutes/day doesn't justify the update just yet, but with gradual updates you keep your workers updated as well (no need to re-educate them after 5 years) and gain gradual hold from your competitors.
Actually, if the engine shows great promise and mature coding style, they still might consider the applicant.
I don't think THAT many companies really, REALLY, care about school diplomas and work success (of course they DO matter a lot), rather than demonstrated skills.
Of course, it is easier to demonstrate those skills when you have a finished game. Although an open source project will let the employers see straight to your code and see what you have done.
I'd simply say, that without "goto" (the functionality, not the language contruct), many tasks of programming woul be nearly impossible. The trick is, many high level languages discourage or lack goto, and that's a completely different matter when compared to a low-level "assembly like" programming like the PS2 VUs or (I assume) CG.
So even if you never use gotos in c/c++, they still are compile in as unconditional jumps at assembly level. The same should happen with pixel/vertex programming.
I find it always amusing, that people demand at least 95% reliability from speech recoqnition, when they themselves do not always succeed in it. When people hear words, they often think about them in combinations and context, to deduce what they really meant.
Speech recognition, as used here, is used to figure out atomic words, such as names and numbers. At least I myself often get these wrong (when spoken to me) and need to ask again if I heard correctly.
1000x (CPU) performance (+ enough memory) would allow for completely interactive worlds, where everything is dynamic, the characters react more intellegently (meaning they do not feel so dummies/robots as now). Currently only the speed (+ market demands) is limiting these factors.
Yes, people like simple things. This is why The Sims does so well. It's a simple game, yet it embodies a clever AI. And yet it's only still a scracth.
well each time you do an #include , WIN32_MEAN_AND_LEAN or not, you end with over 1.5mb of header files to be included. Sure, the precompiled headers can help to overcome this, but still I'd suppose this much of info should slow down the compile time considerably.
I'm not so sure they use implementation hiding to speed up compile time, as luck would have it, everything in windows depends on windows =).
This is only so that they can support the current hardware now, and add support for the future cards (which will most probably have something other than purely linear shaders) later.
It's only reasonable. Of course they could've made a train with all the bells and whistles, but then, who's gonna use it now? No one.
So assuming that you are not working in the project alone, so lets say there are 10 people "like you" in the project, so you can hammer together 10000 lines of debugged code per day. So it takes your team one to two months to procude enough debugged final code for, say, a fully featured role playing game?
Ofcourse all "cost per line" code estimates are a little way off (because measuring by code lines is not accurate enough), but the amount of code one can write per day varies a lot. And sometimes you jsut must go back and rewrite old code snippets that just don't anymore (or are in need of refactorization).
For me the real value is in seeing how the console hardware works, how to control it and generally "how console games differ from the pc game set". More like a learning experience. The monitor/tv debate does not even enter the picture.
Some day, I will be able to add to my CV "experience with the PS2 hardware", just because of this linux 2 kit.
Actually the bigger point here is that when doing multipass rendering, the results will be more accurate. This allows for more subtle and smoother transparencies with less information loss after the blend.
Just go to a site, select Favorites/Add to Favorties and write to the site name your preferred short cut entry (for example go to www.nabisco.com and add it as a "cookies" favorite).
This way your shortcut entry refers to an actual URL, not a host plus this needs no meddling in system hosts file.
Companies need to realize this and make software more available (public betas, lower prices, no prices (free)...)
I don't think the point is, for a company, to automatically give everything free/public/open. Business is business. Sure, they wanted to do a beta so they could be certain that the game works and is balanced when it's released. No, they never wanted the world to play the game. Yes, they have this right as it's their creation. Battle.net is free as it is.
I can already see it.. MS completely opens up their APIs, and first we'll see all spyware and adware vendors hacking in, creating even more devastating plugins that install to your computer "just because they can do it easily".
It would nullify all my false sense of securities right away, but perhaps not for all the people just use computers without understanding what actually makes it tick. This is a scary vision.
I look at all the man months that have gone into the development of Windows, etc. and I look at the results. The sheer amount of time put in is no assurance of the quality of the results.
Look at the results.. A well integrated operating system with lots of stuff figured out to a level the OS community has still to reach. All the UI aspects, drivers, software, APIs and so on are well developed.
Yeah, they are not perfect, in fact not even comfortable for most people, but they work. Sure, there are bugs, and some components suffer from the fact that they work in an unpredicted environment (even though it is in-house).
No open source project has ever reached this magnity (nor am I saying that it has to). All I am saying, is that this is a good achievement from ONE ENTITY. What they use this achievement for is their business (like a monopoly abuse;).'
Actually, if the set and order of cryptology algorythms are chosen on the basis of the passphrase (like calculating a MD5 out of it and getting the info out of the number), it is not obscurity rather than a top level ordering algo.
Actually porting from Xbox to PC is usually harder, as you have many configurations to worry about. Developers use the features Xbox has (gf3) and a corresponding PC would most certainly need these same features. When porting from PC to Xbox, there comes a question about the 64mb memory size.
So sure, it's easy to get started with xbox, but porting is always another issue.
One use that comes to mind, is to have the frontmost window barely transparent (you still can "sense" the windows beneath), and then have a handy way of bringing windows from the back to the front (like pointing over it and middle clicking or something).
When we have a processing source that is fast as whatever, BUT performs a few errors here and there, it's better to use it to perform nondeterministic tasks, like any NP-difficult problems.. Also simulated neural nets and genetic algorithms come to mind.. There's an error? Call it mutation and deal with it..
The solution is to do nothing. Benchamarking a specific application is to test how that ONE application works with the DEFAULT (or reasonable) settings against other cards. If ATI has performed Quake 3 optimizations so be it, as long as gamers really actually GAIN the performance indicated.
If the benchamrks indicated 500FPS, when it's clear that it gains no more than 15, then it's called cheating. If ATI knows how one game runs faster, and optimizes that, it's called optimization;). So no need to get your pants up. No card should be compared against one games perfomance.
Slashdot Mirror
"Due to genetic constraints, the final mammoth specimen will only be 88% pure mammoth and the process will take about 50 years"
Considering that apes, baboons and the like are closer than this to humans (something like over 90% I believe?), will this just be an echo from the past? Meaning the remaining 12% might make such a huge difference that the creation would be more like a new species than a reincarnation.
According to the article, yes. Just pull down the console and type 'editor'. They even demonstrated it by adding lights and stuff.
First of all, I think most of the issues with porting Doom III to XBox deal with the (much much) smaller memory available (64megs for code, data and textures) and getting it running smoothly.
And secondly, I don't think the XBox port will come out of id's own pockets, as Doom III will be one (major) selling and marketing factor for the XBox.
(BTW, I know a many people with XBoxes)
Why should every screenshot released from a game thats under development be somehow visually and aesthetically more superior than the last? At least if this happened, I would be really scared as I don't think that advances come at such rate (which means they are playing the media & audience).
When you are playing the game, you are sure to like some areas, monsters and levels more than others. Some show good design on gameplay, some show visually pleasing effects etc. Overall score is still the one that matters (or "the game sucks because one texture they used in one pilar was blocky").
Of course, not all spending on the IT industry means exactly the same thing. For one entity it might mean hiring a lot of administrators, for other one it might mean hiring a suitable user support and for some it might mean developing new software.
As with any business, any transaction must be weighted. Sure, moving from ordinary typewriters into MS Word desktop computers has saved a lot of $$$ (as soon as the workers were well educated in the manner). And yes, moving from MS Word into a newer MS Word might not boost your revenue as much, but if it will save some 5 minutes/worker/day, don't you think it's worth something like $500/worker (one time)? That is, if you have 10 workers, you have saved well over 16 hours of payed working time in a month.
Sure, most of IT spending has been on whatnot, and some are structural spending, allowing improvement on other aspects. So yes, software is a lot more expensive than something like a fridge (which has solid working conditions, good engineer grap over all aspects and many many years of development time). At the end the question is still how much it costs.
And yeah, maybe that 5 minutes/day doesn't justify the update just yet, but with gradual updates you keep your workers updated as well (no need to re-educate them after 5 years) and gain gradual hold from your competitors.
Actually, if the engine shows great promise and mature coding style, they still might consider the applicant.
I don't think THAT many companies really, REALLY, care about school diplomas and work success (of course they DO matter a lot), rather than demonstrated skills.
Of course, it is easier to demonstrate those skills when you have a finished game. Although an open source project will let the employers see straight to your code and see what you have done.
I'd simply say, that without "goto" (the functionality, not the language contruct), many tasks of programming woul be nearly impossible. The trick is, many high level languages discourage or lack goto, and that's a completely different matter when compared to a low-level "assembly like" programming like the PS2 VUs or (I assume) CG.
So even if you never use gotos in c/c++, they still are compile in as unconditional jumps at assembly level. The same should happen with pixel/vertex programming.
I find it always amusing, that people demand at least 95% reliability from speech recoqnition, when they themselves do not always succeed in it. When people hear words, they often think about them in combinations and context, to deduce what they really meant.
Speech recognition, as used here, is used to figure out atomic words, such as names and numbers. At least I myself often get these wrong (when spoken to me) and need to ask again if I heard correctly.
1000x (CPU) performance (+ enough memory) would allow for completely interactive worlds, where everything is dynamic, the characters react more intellegently (meaning they do not feel so dummies/robots as now). Currently only the speed (+ market demands) is limiting these factors.
Yes, people like simple things. This is why The Sims does so well. It's a simple game, yet it embodies a clever AI. And yet it's only still a scracth.
well each time you do an #include , WIN32_MEAN_AND_LEAN or not, you end with over 1.5mb of header files to be included. Sure, the precompiled headers can help to overcome this, but still I'd suppose this much of info should slow down the compile time considerably.
I'm not so sure they use implementation hiding to speed up compile time, as luck would have it, everything in windows depends on windows =).
This is only so that they can support the current hardware now, and add support for the future cards (which will most probably have something other than purely linear shaders) later.
It's only reasonable. Of course they could've made a train with all the bells and whistles, but then, who's gonna use it now? No one.
So assuming that you are not working in the project alone, so lets say there are 10 people "like you" in the project, so you can hammer together 10000 lines of debugged code per day. So it takes your team one to two months to procude enough debugged final code for, say, a fully featured role playing game?
Ofcourse all "cost per line" code estimates are a little way off (because measuring by code lines is not accurate enough), but the amount of code one can write per day varies a lot. And sometimes you jsut must go back and rewrite old code snippets that just don't anymore (or are in need of refactorization).
For me the real value is in seeing how the console hardware works, how to control it and generally "how console games differ from the pc game set". More like a learning experience. The monitor/tv debate does not even enter the picture.
Some day, I will be able to add to my CV "experience with the PS2 hardware", just because of this linux 2 kit.
IGN ran a similiar interview with bill roper about the same subject.
Actually the bigger point here is that when doing multipass rendering, the results will be more accurate. This allows for more subtle and smoother transparencies with less information loss after the blend.
Just go to a site, select Favorites/Add to Favorties and write to the site name your preferred short cut entry (for example go to www.nabisco.com and add it as a "cookies" favorite).
This way your shortcut entry refers to an actual URL, not a host plus this needs no meddling in system hosts file.
Companies need to realize this and make software more available (public betas, lower prices, no prices (free)...)
I don't think the point is, for a company, to automatically give everything free/public/open. Business is business. Sure, they wanted to do a beta so they could be certain that the game works and is balanced when it's released. No, they never wanted the world to play the game. Yes, they have this right as it's their creation. Battle.net is free as it is.
I can already see it.. MS completely opens up their APIs, and first we'll see all spyware and adware vendors hacking in, creating even more devastating plugins that install to your computer "just because they can do it easily".
It would nullify all my false sense of securities right away, but perhaps not for all the people just use computers without understanding what actually makes it tick. This is a scary vision.
I look at all the man months that have gone into the development of Windows, etc. and I look at the results. The sheer amount of time put in is no assurance of the quality of the results.
;).'
Look at the results.. A well integrated operating system with lots of stuff figured out to a level the OS community has still to reach. All the UI aspects, drivers, software, APIs and so on are well developed.
Yeah, they are not perfect, in fact not even comfortable for most people, but they work. Sure, there are bugs, and some components suffer from the fact that they work in an unpredicted environment (even though it is in-house).
No open source project has ever reached this magnity (nor am I saying that it has to). All I am saying, is that this is a good achievement from ONE ENTITY. What they use this achievement for is their business (like a monopoly abuse
Actually, if the set and order of cryptology algorythms are chosen on the basis of the passphrase (like calculating a MD5 out of it and getting the info out of the number), it is not obscurity rather than a top level ordering algo.
Just a thought..
Actually porting from Xbox to PC is usually harder, as you have many configurations to worry about. Developers use the features Xbox has (gf3) and a corresponding PC would most certainly need these same features. When porting from PC to Xbox, there comes a question about the 64mb memory size.
So sure, it's easy to get started with xbox, but porting is always another issue.
I suppose one turbine generates so much heat, that plugging 50 of these into your PDA would send it into burning flames in moments..
One use that comes to mind, is to have the frontmost window barely transparent (you still can "sense" the windows beneath), and then have a handy way of bringing windows from the back to the front (like pointing over it and middle clicking or something).
When we have a processing source that is fast as whatever, BUT performs a few errors here and there, it's better to use it to perform nondeterministic tasks, like any NP-difficult problems.. Also simulated neural nets and genetic algorithms come to mind.. There's an error? Call it mutation and deal with it..
The solution is to do nothing. Benchamarking a specific application is to test how that ONE application works with the DEFAULT (or reasonable) settings against other cards. If ATI has performed Quake 3 optimizations so be it, as long as gamers really actually GAIN the performance indicated.
;). So no need to get your pants up. No card should be compared against one games perfomance.
If the benchamrks indicated 500FPS, when it's clear that it gains no more than 15, then it's called cheating. If ATI knows how one game runs faster, and optimizes that, it's called optimization