But most users who buy PCs never upgrade their GPUs. Most game developers have two choices: write their software for the lowest denominator and limiting graphics complexity on the PC, or work on console titles where all of the hardware are guaranteed to be equally capable.
PC gaming enthusiasts aren't a very large market compared to console gamers, therefore most studios are likely more focused on developing games for consoles.
This hurts PC gaming, no matter how you look at it.
You're referring to Farenheit. SGI put a lot of effort into development, but MS decided they had nothing to gain from the partnership and continued work on DirectX chose to ignore the deal they made with SGI.
Btw, you do realize that 15 fps on a quad-core processor is done ON the cpu. You're comparing software rendering of raytraced rendering vs. hardware-accelerated rasterization. With the newest graphics cards, we're seeing just the first generation of hardware-accelerated raytracing. Give it some time.
I've been working with computer graphics for quite a while, and I have seen trends in realtime rendering switch paradigms. We went from ray-casting hexagonal rendering (Wolfenstein 3D) to 2.5D BSP sector engines (Doom, Duke3D) and then onto rasterized "true" 3D (Descent, Quake). Ray tracing is the next step. Remember when Quake was only playable at 320x200 resolution on the average PC at the time (Pentium 60), while Duke3D ran fine in SVGA? I do.
It's like arguing that we should go back to raycasting because it can render a textured cube many times faster than a 3D rasterized engine could.
You completely missed the parent's point. Traditional rasterization chugs when a scene gets complex enough (I think the complexity is O(n)). Ray tracing scales very nicely (O(Log n)) and you can throw in stuff like TRUE reflection/refraction with minimal decreases in performance, with millions more polygons. Yes, rasterization is faster in current games, but throw in hundreds of millions of polygons into a scene and see what happens.
Furthermore, rasterization requires tricks (many would call them "hacks") to make the scene approach realism. In games today, shadows are textures (or stencil volumes) created by rendering more passes. While they look "good enough", they still have artifacts and limitations falling short of realistic. Shadows in raytracing come naturally. So do reflections, and refractions. Add some global illumination and the scene looks "real".
Rasterization requires hacks like occlusion culling, depth culling, sorting, portals, levels of detail, etc to make 3D engines run realtime, and some of these algorithms are insanely hard to implement for best case scenarios, and even then you're doing unnecessary work and wasting unnecessary ram rendering things you never see. Raytracing only renders what's on the screen.
That being said, I don't think raytracing will completely replace rasterization, at least not right away. Eventually, some games may incorporate a hybrid approach like most commercial renderers do today (scanline rendering for geometry, add raytracing for reflections and shadows). Eventually, 3D hardware will better support raytracing, and maybe in another decade we'll begin to see fast 3D engines that use ray tracing exclusively.
And both trademarks appear to be jokes. Despair, Inc does use the trademark as their logo (although it was Scott Fahlman who first used it in 1982). I don't think prior art works for trademarks.
Apparently, your butler isn't doing a very good job. He should have filtered out all the spam in your snail mail. Delete him and install a new one.
There, fixed.
The PW119 engines are very powerful but only about 25% more than what is on the F16 and the plane is much bigger.
First off, you're forgetting that the F-22 has two of them. The F-16 only has one, capable of about 29,000 lbs of thrust. Each Pratt&Whitney power plant puts out over 35,000 lbs each (w/ afterburner), so that means 70,000+ lbs total thrust.
Second, they're completely different aircraft with completely different goals. So don't compare the two. The F-22 was designed to be an air-superiority fighter to replace the F-15 (they're about the same size). The F-16 is light multi-role fighter with shorter range and payload. Have you ever seen an F-16 next to an F-15? BIG difference... the F-15 is a mammoth, the F-16 is a lawn dart.
Despite this difference, the F-22 has a much larger thrust-weight ratio due to having 2 powerplants (~1.26) compared to the F-16 (~1.1, with updated engine). Fascinating fact: the YF-23 (the ATF competitor to the F-22) had a thrust/weight ratio of over 1.36, which could theoretically push the bird into Mach 3 at altitude (though its top speed is still classified).
So far, the only DX10 "exclusives" seem to be artificial restrictions on DX9 features. Most of the DX10 "features" (ie- "Very High" mode) in Crysis can be enabled in DX9 by using either the console or editing the game cfg files.
It's been a year, and so far DX10 hasn't really added the promised eye candy and performance over DX9, nor am I convinced that it'll ever add anything worth upgrading to Vista for. IIRC, WinXP did fine despite the fact that DX8 ran on older platforms. It's quite obvious that Microsoft shot themselves in the foot by slowing DX10 adoption for the sake of pushing Vista.
I bought my copy in June '05, right when it came out for the PC so I'm eligible. The thing is, you have to submit proof of purchase (possibly receipt) to R* and they cut you the check. Needless to say, I wasn't offended at all by the hot coffee mod, and it isn't worth the effort to dig through old credit card receipts and cut up that nice DVD booklet for a measly $35 that may come next year.
Then again, I am tempted to mail in my proof-of-purchase with a letter thanking them and telling them that I don't want anything, just assurance that they'll never back down, they'll continue making great games, and that they'll keep ignoring those annoying lawyers and so-called "consumer" groups.
The symbian one was laughable enough, this is just, it is almost sad.
I was with you until you said this. Unlike Microsoft, the mobile OS market actually IS Symbian's world.
Handing over the source is one thing. Most newer technologies consist of some header files and documentation, and force you to dynamically link their stuff (you're not given access to the source), depending on the kind of license. $75k sounds sounds relatively cheap, so it wouldn't surprise me if Epic gave SK nothing more than header files and precompiled binaries to link against. I work for a firm that licenses middleware to companies for use in simulations and games, and this is what we typically do for "value" licenses.
This, unfortunately, puts the licensee at the mercy of the middleware provider, relying solely on documentation and promises of new features. I don't know the details of this case in question, but if the documentation is lacking, and Epic couldn't provide the promised level of support, SK may very well have a case.
Honestly, I believe the strategy is they're giving you HL2/Ep1 again for free. The whole package is $45 (currently) for Ep2, Portal, and TF2 with HL2+Ep1 thrown in. It's not like they're making much money on HL2/Ep1 anymore, so it's hardly a loss for them. If you don't need HL2 and/or Ep1, you can give them away to someone else, who in turn may become hooked on the Half-Life storyline/gameplay, adding more customers.
Modern shareware- Valve seems to know exactly what they're doing. I already pre-ordered (and pre-loaded) mine, and promised my younger brother my extra HL2/Ep1.
A BENTLEY is a status symbol. It is a piece of shit car that costs about $200,000 more than it is actually worth, and gets pwned by a Volkswagen.
Since 1998, it is a Volkswagen.
Nice straw man. When did he mention an entire field of science?
Scientists are people too. Contrary to popular belief, they're not infallible and can (and often do) have egos and axes to grind- not to mention greed. I'm not saying they're all selfish people merely acting in their own best interests rather than the benefit of mankind; many humble researchers obviously have had noble achievements. But don't put every expert on a pedestal because they're "scientists".
Needless to say, grad school was certainly a rude awakening for me.
Theres more to it than that, but it involves certain plot points, and I wouldn't want to ruin it for anyone. Your post makes it seem like you're still relatively early in the game, so I hope you enjoy it.
Would you kindly refrain from revealing any plot spoilers?:)
Anyway, if you even bothered to read the first seven words of the summary, you'd notice that Sony owns SecuROM, the copy protection software that Bioshock uses.
You're missing the point of the tech demonstrations. Depth of field, motion blurring, and HDR lighting are current-gen features and are commonly featured in games out today. He was rather focusing on the amount of detail (80 GB worth) that was dynamically loaded, and didn't rely on old "hacks" (detail textures heavily repeated over a lower-res diffuse map, etc) to create the illusion of detail at an acceptable frame rate. And do so while keeping the engine both portable and fast is icing on the cake.
That in itself is rather impressive. As an OpenGL developer, I'm no longer impressed by motion blur, volume shadows, and other textbook shaders/effects - I'm more impressed by this.
Don't let the job listings get you down. The jobs usually listed on Monster, Careerbuilder or (name your favorite job website) usually shoot higher than what they're asking in the descriptions. The job I'm currently at said 5+ years of experience and settled on me with my 2 years (+6 month co-op) because I had a good interview and I knew what I was talking about.
Also, having your resume public allows recruiters and jobs to find you. My first job out of college (3 years ago) found me. Granted, you may find as a contractor for a few years before you find yourself a permanent job, but you'll get some valuable experience doing those short 6-12 month "gigs".
Luckily for you, the CS job market seems to be better than when I graduated. I considered myself lucky to have one job offer within weeks of graduation- many of my classmates couldn't find CS jobs within the year. Anyway, good luck!
Slashdot Mirror
But most users who buy PCs never upgrade their GPUs. Most game developers have two choices: write their software for the lowest denominator and limiting graphics complexity on the PC, or work on console titles where all of the hardware are guaranteed to be equally capable.
PC gaming enthusiasts aren't a very large market compared to console gamers, therefore most studios are likely more focused on developing games for consoles.
This hurts PC gaming, no matter how you look at it.
You're referring to Farenheit. SGI put a lot of effort into development, but MS decided they had nothing to gain from the partnership and continued work on DirectX chose to ignore the deal they made with SGI.
After seven years, I think we're all pretty used to the current administration's tendencies towards cronyism.
Btw, you do realize that 15 fps on a quad-core processor is done ON the cpu. You're comparing software rendering of raytraced rendering vs. hardware-accelerated rasterization. With the newest graphics cards, we're seeing just the first generation of hardware-accelerated raytracing. Give it some time.
I've been working with computer graphics for quite a while, and I have seen trends in realtime rendering switch paradigms. We went from ray-casting hexagonal rendering (Wolfenstein 3D) to 2.5D BSP sector engines (Doom, Duke3D) and then onto rasterized "true" 3D (Descent, Quake). Ray tracing is the next step. Remember when Quake was only playable at 320x200 resolution on the average PC at the time (Pentium 60), while Duke3D ran fine in SVGA? I do.
It's like arguing that we should go back to raycasting because it can render a textured cube many times faster than a 3D rasterized engine could.
You're being rather shortsighted.
You completely missed the parent's point. Traditional rasterization chugs when a scene gets complex enough (I think the complexity is O(n)). Ray tracing scales very nicely (O(Log n)) and you can throw in stuff like TRUE reflection/refraction with minimal decreases in performance, with millions more polygons. Yes, rasterization is faster in current games, but throw in hundreds of millions of polygons into a scene and see what happens.
Furthermore, rasterization requires tricks (many would call them "hacks") to make the scene approach realism. In games today, shadows are textures (or stencil volumes) created by rendering more passes. While they look "good enough", they still have artifacts and limitations falling short of realistic. Shadows in raytracing come naturally. So do reflections, and refractions. Add some global illumination and the scene looks "real".
Rasterization requires hacks like occlusion culling, depth culling, sorting, portals, levels of detail, etc to make 3D engines run realtime, and some of these algorithms are insanely hard to implement for best case scenarios, and even then you're doing unnecessary work and wasting unnecessary ram rendering things you never see. Raytracing only renders what's on the screen.
That being said, I don't think raytracing will completely replace rasterization, at least not right away. Eventually, some games may incorporate a hybrid approach like most commercial renderers do today (scanline rendering for geometry, add raytracing for reflections and shadows). Eventually, 3D hardware will better support raytracing, and maybe in another decade we'll begin to see fast 3D engines that use ray tracing exclusively.
"It is God!"
Next time, use smilies to help mods who are sarcasm-impared. ;)
I just told her what you said. She didn't get the joke.
I'm guessing that's a good thing.
Technically, it's :-( that's trademarked, not :(
;-)
And both trademarks appear to be jokes. Despair, Inc does use the trademark as their logo (although it was Scott Fahlman who first used it in 1982). I don't think prior art works for trademarks.
IANAL, but I'm dating one
There, fixed.
First off, you're forgetting that the F-22 has two of them. The F-16 only has one, capable of about 29,000 lbs of thrust. Each Pratt&Whitney power plant puts out over 35,000 lbs each (w/ afterburner), so that means 70,000+ lbs total thrust.
Second, they're completely different aircraft with completely different goals. So don't compare the two. The F-22 was designed to be an air-superiority fighter to replace the F-15 (they're about the same size). The F-16 is light multi-role fighter with shorter range and payload. Have you ever seen an F-16 next to an F-15? BIG difference... the F-15 is a mammoth, the F-16 is a lawn dart.
Despite this difference, the F-22 has a much larger thrust-weight ratio due to having 2 powerplants (~1.26) compared to the F-16 (~1.1, with updated engine). Fascinating fact: the YF-23 (the ATF competitor to the F-22) had a thrust/weight ratio of over 1.36, which could theoretically push the bird into Mach 3 at altitude (though its top speed is still classified).
So far, the only DX10 "exclusives" seem to be artificial restrictions on DX9 features. Most of the DX10 "features" (ie- "Very High" mode) in Crysis can be enabled in DX9 by using either the console or editing the game cfg files.
It's been a year, and so far DX10 hasn't really added the promised eye candy and performance over DX9, nor am I convinced that it'll ever add anything worth upgrading to Vista for. IIRC, WinXP did fine despite the fact that DX8 ran on older platforms. It's quite obvious that Microsoft shot themselves in the foot by slowing DX10 adoption for the sake of pushing Vista.
I bought my copy in June '05, right when it came out for the PC so I'm eligible. The thing is, you have to submit proof of purchase (possibly receipt) to R* and they cut you the check. Needless to say, I wasn't offended at all by the hot coffee mod, and it isn't worth the effort to dig through old credit card receipts and cut up that nice DVD booklet for a measly $35 that may come next year.
Then again, I am tempted to mail in my proof-of-purchase with a letter thanking them and telling them that I don't want anything, just assurance that they'll never back down, they'll continue making great games, and that they'll keep ignoring those annoying lawyers and so-called "consumer" groups.
I was with you until you said this. Unlike Microsoft, the mobile OS market actually IS Symbian's world.
Why mod funny? It's a very, very old joke. The second part of it would be "Not only would it fail at sucking, it would BLOW!".
Oops.. I just posted. It looks like my mod points are worthless here.
Handing over the source is one thing. Most newer technologies consist of some header files and documentation, and force you to dynamically link their stuff (you're not given access to the source), depending on the kind of license. $75k sounds sounds relatively cheap, so it wouldn't surprise me if Epic gave SK nothing more than header files and precompiled binaries to link against. I work for a firm that licenses middleware to companies for use in simulations and games, and this is what we typically do for "value" licenses.
This, unfortunately, puts the licensee at the mercy of the middleware provider, relying solely on documentation and promises of new features. I don't know the details of this case in question, but if the documentation is lacking, and Epic couldn't provide the promised level of support, SK may very well have a case.
Honestly, I believe the strategy is they're giving you HL2/Ep1 again for free. The whole package is $45 (currently) for Ep2, Portal, and TF2 with HL2+Ep1 thrown in. It's not like they're making much money on HL2/Ep1 anymore, so it's hardly a loss for them. If you don't need HL2 and/or Ep1, you can give them away to someone else, who in turn may become hooked on the Half-Life storyline/gameplay, adding more customers.
Modern shareware- Valve seems to know exactly what they're doing. I already pre-ordered (and pre-loaded) mine, and promised my younger brother my extra HL2/Ep1.
Since 1998, it is a Volkswagen.
Nice straw man. When did he mention an entire field of science?
Scientists are people too. Contrary to popular belief, they're not infallible and can (and often do) have egos and axes to grind- not to mention greed. I'm not saying they're all selfish people merely acting in their own best interests rather than the benefit of mankind; many humble researchers obviously have had noble achievements. But don't put every expert on a pedestal because they're "scientists".
Needless to say, grad school was certainly a rude awakening for me.
Would you kindly refrain from revealing any plot spoilers?
Wow, that's some rant there.
Anyway, if you even bothered to read the first seven words of the summary, you'd notice that Sony owns SecuROM, the copy protection software that Bioshock uses.
You aren't by chance posting from prison, are you?
You're missing the point of the tech demonstrations. Depth of field, motion blurring, and HDR lighting are current-gen features and are commonly featured in games out today. He was rather focusing on the amount of detail (80 GB worth) that was dynamically loaded, and didn't rely on old "hacks" (detail textures heavily repeated over a lower-res diffuse map, etc) to create the illusion of detail at an acceptable frame rate. And do so while keeping the engine both portable and fast is icing on the cake.
That in itself is rather impressive. As an OpenGL developer, I'm no longer impressed by motion blur, volume shadows, and other textbook shaders/effects - I'm more impressed by this.
Don't let the job listings get you down. The jobs usually listed on Monster, Careerbuilder or (name your favorite job website) usually shoot higher than what they're asking in the descriptions. The job I'm currently at said 5+ years of experience and settled on me with my 2 years (+6 month co-op) because I had a good interview and I knew what I was talking about.
Also, having your resume public allows recruiters and jobs to find you. My first job out of college (3 years ago) found me. Granted, you may find as a contractor for a few years before you find yourself a permanent job, but you'll get some valuable experience doing those short 6-12 month "gigs".
Luckily for you, the CS job market seems to be better than when I graduated. I considered myself lucky to have one job offer within weeks of graduation- many of my classmates couldn't find CS jobs within the year. Anyway, good luck!