You nailed it. The PS2 was an initial nightmare -- until you got those internal libraries built, everything was hand assembly (and, to make matters worse, almost all the documentation was in Japanese). Then, add the fact that the initial round of development tools themselves, especially debuggers, were woefully inadequate. I'd guess the typical company would have to invest a small team for about a solid year to get core libraries build to begin assembling PS2 games of any quality. This is where I believe Xbox has had some muscle, because the typical PC developer can literally port to the Xbox in a matter of weeks in many cases.
I agree with others here that while the PS3 chip specs are looking interesting, past history would tell us that they will most likely be delivered with little to no documentation, tools of fairly shoddy quality, and probably will require assembly-level programming and strong knowledge of multithreading and balancing of parallel processing to get the most out of the hardware. It will probably take another year of investment in core engine and library changes to begin developing a serious PS3 title, which itself will probably need 18-24 months. I'd gladly like to see the PS3 delayed a year and let Sony develop some good documentation and tools before throwing this hardware on the dev community.
I don't see a problem here. We all recognize these brands, and to that degree having them in a "virtual" world further legitimizes that world as one we will recognize. The kudo here is that EA got companies to pay THEM, not the other way around.
When I was working on PC flight simulators, to use any likeness, logo, or performance data you had to pay the aircraft manufacturer. We argued that they were getting free exposure for their product, but got no dice. At least in this instance EA was able to turn it to their favor and further fund development. Good for them.
Excuse me, but I pay over $50 for cable in my area. What the hell am I paying for? The networks get a cut of my monthly bill to allow my cable operator to carry their stations. If they don't like their cut, take it up with my cable company, not by force feeding me ads.
I agree with others here -- I'll gladly pay for this stuff, but PLEASE let me choose what I'm paying for instead of giving me 80 channels when I only watch 8 of them. Take my money and give it to those 8 channels and get the hell off my back!
Scott, I'm running it under Win2K with no problems. You have to hand-edit the registry to bring over keys from your Win95 installation, but once done everything works fine. Do a search, instructions should still be lying around.
Rich
I wouldn't trust this list further than I could kick it. It is simply too subjective of an issue. There are certainly brands that tend to have problems or poor manufacturing, but I'm cracking up at the score they gave SuperMicro. It scored a perfect 10.0 for reliability, but since it is poor for overclocking and built-in motherboard features it ended up getting the lowest score of the bunch.
My best overall home machine is a dual P3-500 SuperMicro machine that runs 24/7/365 and has never given me problems. The box is simply rock solid. On the other hand, my Shuttle based machine is down constantly. It's obvious the testers were much more concerned with maximum performance (speed, overclocking, built-in features) vs. maximum stability/useability. Besides, what do I care about some piece of crap video and audio subsystem layered on my motherboard. I'd simply turn it off in BIOS anyway and add my own cards.
DVD Forum is hedging its bets
on
More on MPEG4
·
· Score: 2, Informative
They agreed earlier this week on specifications for HD-DVD playback and recordable formats, and it is very possible that MPEG4 will be eliminated from the equation entirely. Check out:
http://www.eetimes.com/sys/news/OEG20020301S0091
I'm sure they are waiting for the announcement this summer on the "true" cost of the licensing before they pull the trigger, but it looks like MPEG2 will be the standard for HD-DVD recorders, and MPEG2 could remain the standard for HD-DVD playback.
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You nailed it. The PS2 was an initial nightmare -- until you got those internal libraries built, everything was hand assembly (and, to make matters worse, almost all the documentation was in Japanese). Then, add the fact that the initial round of development tools themselves, especially debuggers, were woefully inadequate. I'd guess the typical company would have to invest a small team for about a solid year to get core libraries build to begin assembling PS2 games of any quality. This is where I believe Xbox has had some muscle, because the typical PC developer can literally port to the Xbox in a matter of weeks in many cases.
I agree with others here that while the PS3 chip specs are looking interesting, past history would tell us that they will most likely be delivered with little to no documentation, tools of fairly shoddy quality, and probably will require assembly-level programming and strong knowledge of multithreading and balancing of parallel processing to get the most out of the hardware. It will probably take another year of investment in core engine and library changes to begin developing a serious PS3 title, which itself will probably need 18-24 months. I'd gladly like to see the PS3 delayed a year and let Sony develop some good documentation and tools before throwing this hardware on the dev community.
When I was working on PC flight simulators, to use any likeness, logo, or performance data you had to pay the aircraft manufacturer. We argued that they were getting free exposure for their product, but got no dice. At least in this instance EA was able to turn it to their favor and further fund development. Good for them.
Excuse me, but I pay over $50 for cable in my area. What the hell am I paying for? The networks get a cut of my monthly bill to allow my cable operator to carry their stations. If they don't like their cut, take it up with my cable company, not by force feeding me ads. I agree with others here -- I'll gladly pay for this stuff, but PLEASE let me choose what I'm paying for instead of giving me 80 channels when I only watch 8 of them. Take my money and give it to those 8 channels and get the hell off my back!
Scott, I'm running it under Win2K with no problems. You have to hand-edit the registry to bring over keys from your Win95 installation, but once done everything works fine. Do a search, instructions should still be lying around. Rich
I wouldn't trust this list further than I could kick it. It is simply too subjective of an issue. There are certainly brands that tend to have problems or poor manufacturing, but I'm cracking up at the score they gave SuperMicro. It scored a perfect 10.0 for reliability, but since it is poor for overclocking and built-in motherboard features it ended up getting the lowest score of the bunch. My best overall home machine is a dual P3-500 SuperMicro machine that runs 24/7/365 and has never given me problems. The box is simply rock solid. On the other hand, my Shuttle based machine is down constantly. It's obvious the testers were much more concerned with maximum performance (speed, overclocking, built-in features) vs. maximum stability/useability. Besides, what do I care about some piece of crap video and audio subsystem layered on my motherboard. I'd simply turn it off in BIOS anyway and add my own cards.
They agreed earlier this week on specifications for HD-DVD playback and recordable formats, and it is very possible that MPEG4 will be eliminated from the equation entirely. Check out: http://www.eetimes.com/sys/news/OEG20020301S0091 I'm sure they are waiting for the announcement this summer on the "true" cost of the licensing before they pull the trigger, but it looks like MPEG2 will be the standard for HD-DVD recorders, and MPEG2 could remain the standard for HD-DVD playback.