LQ) Can you tell me a little bit about what went into the original decision to release an NVIDIA driver for Linux? NV) NVIDIA received several requests from our end users for giving the same quality Linux drivers that we provide on other platforms. In addition, our workstation customers were moving more and more of their development to Linux. NVIDIA recognized early on the demand for Linux drivers from the community as well as from significant commercial customers such as the film studios, national labs, geosciences, life sciences, etc and knew that this was to become a trend in professional graphics as customers started migrating from proprietary UNIX workstations to open platforms.
LQ) Does NVIDIA use Linux for anything internally? NV) Yes, we use it for many things internally from developing drivers to designing and verifying our chip design. We use Linux substantially for software development, testing, as well as having the largest Linux data center for chip simulation in the industry!
LQ) Can you tell us a little bit about the current demand you are seeing for Linux drivers? What has the recent trend been? NV) Demand has continues to grow for high quality Linux drivers with each new generation of GPUs. Around 15-20% of our workstation users ship with Linux. Some industries in the workstation business are 100% Linux. We have users using our Linux OpenGL drivers for things like designing automobiles, operating medical equipment, broadcasting television, and creating the latest special effects in movies.
LQ) From a technical perspective, which drivers do your engineers like working on? Why? NV) I think its fair to say that our engineers like working on great GPUs. We have some folks on our team that like working on Linux, others on Windows, and others on Apple. Driver developers can be bigots too. We have too many developers to make such a generalization. Due to the unified driver infrastructure, we share a common driver base between multiple operating systems (like Linux, Windows, Linux64, Win64, MacOS, Solaris).
LQ) At times, NVIDIA has taken a bit of flak for the Linux drivers not being Open Source. Can you tell us a little bit about why they aren't? Do you have any plans for a full open source driver, or is the long term plan to stick with one Open Source driver (nv) and one closed source driver (nvidia). NV) We have lots of IP in our supported closed source Linux driver some of which is licensed and cannot be open sourced. While we did our best to ensure that there was open source driver (nv) for our chips available, we got lots of feedback from our professional partners as well as end users that wanted a driver that had the same quality and performance characteristics of our supported drivers for platforms such as Windows and Apple. By taking on the commitment to providing great Linux drivers for our GPUs, networking adapters/storage/audio devices we have given our end users the same Compatibility, Reliability & Stability that NVIDIA Software has become known for. We will maintain the strategy of providing both. Due to the UDA architecture, there is too much IP in the driver source to make open sourcing the driver a practicality.
LQ) Is there anything the Linux community could do to help enable the release of an Open Source driver? NV) Not at this time.
LQ) Has NVIDIA considered putting a "Compatible with Linux" type logo (similar to the Windows logo) on any of its products? NV) We do use the Linux (Penguin) logo when appropriate on our software etc, but this is more of a question for our OEM's and channel partners who place these types of stickers on their boxes.
LQ) What do you see as the biggest obstacle for Linux becoming a mainstream gaming platform? NV) Having better game developer tools for Linux, more installed base of consumer users for Linux and the horrible ATI drivers for people that were stupid enough to buy radeons.
LQ) Any comment on the recent X.org fork? Do you anticipate it impacting NVIDIA in any way?
Yeah! And whats with AOL using AIM as the default messaging service? And aol's mail for the default email? Its so monopolistic! They should license YIM and embed it into aol to be fair to their competition.
Seriously, its their browser, why shouldnt they make the homepage their search? Moz's default is a moz branded google, how is this different?
The problem with that is thats only concurrent players. PK is a duel game.. you play for 10 minutes, then its over, no reason to idle around on the server.
I really think DCI(makers of PK) paid CPL, but I have no proof, so I didnt really mention it before.
Regardless of game though, I am just glad we're moving away from CS/CoD/othe team based games. Getting 5 people flown around the country + hotel fees is expensive. Sponsoring 5 people for the above is equally costly and more risky. In a 1v1 competition, sponsoring someone with a single plane ticket and hotel room becomes much easier so you'll be able to see more players attend. Its also a lot easier to watch a 1vs1 (one of those projectors they used in summer for each player) than having some guy randomly pick someone to follow on the left screen with HLTV overview on the right (Or as they ended up having it in the quarterfinals.. same person on both screens in third person.. gotta love that.)
It might be easier if CS was maintained by people that actually play it, so you'd see stuff like QuakeWorld ( And I believe quake3) has like MultiView support (split screen in the same client.
While I fully agree with you, I don't think thats the real problem. The real problem is modern games just arnt as good competitively as the ones we've been playing for 5-8 years. I think people would upgrade if a game came along that revolutionized everything..but its just not happening. Doom3 is kind of fun to watch, but it can become a boring shadow camping game.
It does though. Who pays these crazy prizes? Sponsors. For CPL, thats Intel and Nvidia (and to a lesser extent, hitachi, and some other smaller companys). Intel and Nvidia would both be better off if you were stuck upgrading your machine to play the game, so they'd push for the competition to choose, say, Doom3 over QuakeWorld.
And for the record, all tournament matches are done on official CPL machines, not your own. The only thing you use your machien for at cpl is the giant BYOC lan, although your point still stands for all the times you're playing the game that isnt the big matches in a tourney.
Well, I don't have any charts handy for how many times I've heard people talk about how fucking horrible the SP game was. (repetitive level design and monsters, repetitive gameplay (OOH ANOTHER PDA, I WONDER IF THERES A LOCKER ACCES CODE IN IT.. THERE IS!) etc).
mostly because ut2k4 sucks. Trolling aside, I'd bet a licensing issue. PK is by a new company that wont try to screw CPL over on licensing, unlike Quake and Unreal. On top of that, PK was made to be competitive, specificly in the area that CPL is looking for: Duels. The guy(rxr) that made/maintains the major QuakeWorld competitive mod (KombatTeams Pro) was hired on to painkiller to oversee the multiplayer development, as a result you get a fun and not too unbalanced game. In comparison, UT was meant for 16+ player crazy FFAs above all else, and thus doesnt scale down right for duels.
I could have sworn they announced Doom3 as their world tour game, but maybe that fell through (Or the article is just wrong). I remember watching some PK duels on the big projectors last cpl, but I doubt theyd make it the main event.
You'll find it way down there at the bottom, below all the demos of games from 1999-2002.
Sad, I really dont mind the 4 player limit (More than enough to duel, and thats what ID games are best at), but something about the game just didnt work. Maybe Q4 will be better, maybe not. we'll see.
"You are telling me that something that requires more time to process to make it look significantly better, is slower than the uglier, slower-computer-friendly version? How long did it take to do the PhD work behind this?"
No, asshat, I'm saying the DX9 renderer is slow even on a decent card, and that you're better off forcing the game to use a renderer it doesnt want to.
"whatever he calls CPL is up to him" No, asshat, The CPL is the biggest CS lan in the world. 4500 was the number of people in the byoc last year. want my byoc pub demos?
"Not to mention that the code similarities would likely be there. Even if the engine is "all new," they will still reuse some code. Not everyone likes to reinvent the wheel everyday."
No shit, asshat, thats what I said. The parent poster was saying HL2 wasn't based on quake, and I was saying otherwise. And incase anyone feels like arguing with me..
Funny, Niether CS nor HL even uses cells or nails, yet those are the exact 4 names of the ammo variables that are used in quake (and still exist in HL1CS.. do a delta_stats in console and you'll see all the variables attached to the player struct)
RTCW(ET atleast, I dont remember about the original) Counterstrike (dual elites. completely worthless guns unless you want to humiliate some cal-o clan by using nothing but them in a clan match, but theyre there.)
The Specialists. (Akimbo is an option on just about all pistols in that game, and some SMGs like uzis.) As you mentioned, the dual MGs in UT. And a ton of other games/mods.
What, new to console gaming? Nope. Goldeneye for the N64 let you dual any weapon, even mixing between weapons.
Revolution in Online gaming? Nope. I'd say QuakeWorld brought about the only revolution(optimizing for online play). After that its all been evolution.
Jacking vehicles? Hell, even HalfLife (1998) had vehicles in them. They wernt good, but neither are halos (point to steer? how skillless.) Other notable examples: Battlefield 1942, UT2k4.
What rolls down stairs Alone or in pairs... Rolls over your neighbor's dog? What's great for a snack And fits on your back? It's bLog! bLog! bLog! It's bLo-og, it's bLo-og It's big, it's heavy It's wood! It's bLo-og, bLo-og It's better than bad It's good!!!
" Um... HL2 is not quake-based. It's based on "Source", a homebrew engine that has separate rendering paths for DX7, DX8.0, DX8.1, and DX9."
Source is just the working name for the engine. Its not written from scratch, its based on HL1. If it wernt for the legalitys, you could easil run jwz's code comparison on the hl2 source leak and the quake1 source dir and find a ton of similarities.
I've played with the engine for a while now, and even with a DX9 card (fx5600), you're still better off using the dx7 renderer just for the fps boost, but the visual difference is huge.
As for the netcode, CS1.6 was(and is) horrible. Even on a large lan the netcode screwups were apparnt, I saw plenty of people teleporting and shots not registering at CPL Summer 04.
Then CS:S came out, and its even worse because noone has the cpu required to update with the server at a timely frequency. Its like playing against people on dialup, even when theyre only 20ms away from the server.
Like any quake based engine, HL2 will scale down pretty well if you know your way around the console.
Its still far more of a memory whore than its worth, though. By that I mean the ratio of resources required to the ratio of fun just makes it not worth the $50-$80 + cost of hardware if you dont want to run the game in a mode so ugly most will consider you cheating.
Personally, I say long live QuakeWorld Anything faster than a P1 can run it (and I'm not just talking x86), and its been upgraded far beyond HL1 as far as graphics-- MD3 models, Particle explosions (instead of seeing the same 3 sprites in a row on every explosion), RELIABLE NETCODE (counterstrike players know what I'm talking about), and most importantly, It's fun.
I'm too lazy to check the lower scored posts so someone might have pointed this out already, but yes, they do get commision for everyone they talk out of canceling.
My tip: ask them for their full name so you can report them to their supervisor for harassing you when you just wanted to cancle. Should change their attitude.
I assure you gaining karma is no problem. KarmaWhoring started out as whoring for informative/insightful, not funny. Just look back at the original whore, cmdr^H^H^H^HSignal11. Getting modded up on slashdot is a game with the difficulty level stuck on easy. Rather than adding the 50 cap and the stupid word games, they should of added a high score page, and then to combat people with insane ammounts of karma, made it so being modded up has a dropoff relative to your karma; Eg, karma: 10 modded up = karma: 12. karma: 80 modded up = karma: 80.1
Just have RFID rings, changed daily so that TheBadGuys(TM) don't get them. any ring would work for all guns.
Or they could go one step further and go from smart guns to genius guns and use pubkey auth, each gun has all policeforces rings with an expirey date of maybe a week. Someone loses their ring? revoke the key. Each gun could sync with a device in the car.
Of course, then when the terrorists find a way to mass-revoke all keys in new york right before a massive attack..
I'm glad they restrict it. It will be nice to have the ingame population mirror the real world population, so that late at night fewer people are on (not just a ton of asians.)
While I've never fully trusted these numbers (theres huge variance due to inability to filter bots from players), its still obvious nothing comes close to comparing. Its not just linux users that prefer a slightly slower nvidia purely because ati has always been known for bad drivers.
Slashdot Mirror
LQ) Can you tell me a little bit about what went into the original decision to release an NVIDIA driver for Linux?
NV) NVIDIA received several requests from our end users for giving the same quality Linux drivers that we provide on other platforms. In addition, our workstation customers were moving more and more of their development to Linux. NVIDIA recognized early on the demand for Linux drivers from the community as well as from significant commercial customers such as the film studios, national labs, geosciences, life sciences, etc and knew that this was to become a trend in professional graphics as customers started migrating from proprietary UNIX workstations to open platforms.
LQ) Does NVIDIA use Linux for anything internally?
NV) Yes, we use it for many things internally from developing drivers to designing and verifying our chip design. We use Linux substantially for software development, testing, as well as having the largest Linux data center for chip simulation in the industry!
LQ) Can you tell us a little bit about the current demand you are seeing for Linux drivers? What has the recent trend been?
NV) Demand has continues to grow for high quality Linux drivers with each new generation of GPUs. Around 15-20% of our workstation users ship with Linux. Some industries in the workstation business are 100% Linux. We have users using our Linux OpenGL drivers for things like designing automobiles, operating medical equipment, broadcasting television, and creating the latest special effects in movies.
LQ) From a technical perspective, which drivers do your engineers like working on? Why?
NV) I think its fair to say that our engineers like working on great GPUs. We have some folks on our team that like working on Linux, others on Windows, and others on Apple. Driver developers can be bigots too. We have too many developers to make such a generalization. Due to the unified driver infrastructure, we share a common driver base between multiple operating systems (like Linux, Windows, Linux64, Win64, MacOS, Solaris).
LQ) At times, NVIDIA has taken a bit of flak for the Linux drivers not being Open Source. Can you tell us a little bit about why they aren't? Do you have any plans for a full open source driver, or is the long term plan to stick with one Open Source driver (nv) and one closed source driver (nvidia).
NV) We have lots of IP in our supported closed source Linux driver some of which is licensed and cannot be open sourced. While we did our best to ensure that there was open source driver (nv) for our chips available, we got lots of feedback from our professional partners as well as end users that wanted a driver that had the same quality and performance characteristics of our supported drivers for platforms such as Windows and Apple. By taking on the commitment to providing great Linux drivers for our GPUs, networking adapters/storage/audio devices we have given our end users the same Compatibility, Reliability & Stability that NVIDIA Software has become known for. We will maintain the strategy of providing both. Due to the UDA architecture, there is too much IP in the driver source to make open sourcing the driver a practicality.
LQ) Is there anything the Linux community could do to help enable the release of an Open Source driver?
NV) Not at this time.
LQ) Has NVIDIA considered putting a "Compatible with Linux" type logo (similar to the Windows logo) on any of its products?
NV) We do use the Linux (Penguin) logo when appropriate on our software etc, but this is more of a question for our OEM's and channel partners who place these types of stickers on their boxes.
LQ) What do you see as the biggest obstacle for Linux becoming a mainstream gaming platform?
NV) Having better game developer tools for Linux, more installed base of consumer users for Linux and the horrible ATI drivers for people that were stupid enough to buy radeons.
LQ) Any comment on the recent X.org fork? Do you anticipate it impacting NVIDIA in any way?
Yeah! And whats with AOL using AIM as the default messaging service? And aol's mail for the default email? Its so monopolistic! They should license YIM and embed it into aol to be fair to their competition.
Seriously, its their browser, why shouldnt they make the homepage their search? Moz's default is a moz branded google, how is this different?
The problem with that is thats only concurrent players. PK is a duel game.. you play for 10 minutes, then its over, no reason to idle around on the server.
I really think DCI(makers of PK) paid CPL, but I have no proof, so I didnt really mention it before.
Regardless of game though, I am just glad we're moving away from CS/CoD/othe team based games. Getting 5 people flown around the country + hotel fees is expensive. Sponsoring 5 people for the above is equally costly and more risky. In a 1v1 competition, sponsoring someone with a single plane ticket and hotel room becomes much easier so you'll be able to see more players attend. Its also a lot easier to watch a 1vs1 (one of those projectors they used in summer for each player) than having some guy randomly pick someone to follow on the left screen with HLTV overview on the right (Or as they ended up having it in the quarterfinals.. same person on both screens in third person.. gotta love that.)
It might be easier if CS was maintained by people that actually play it, so you'd see stuff like QuakeWorld ( And I believe quake3) has like MultiView support (split screen in the same client.
While I fully agree with you, I don't think thats the real problem. The real problem is modern games just arnt as good competitively as the ones we've been playing for 5-8 years. I think people would upgrade if a game came along that revolutionized everything..but its just not happening. Doom3 is kind of fun to watch, but it can become a boring shadow camping game.
It does though. Who pays these crazy prizes? Sponsors. For CPL, thats Intel and Nvidia (and to a lesser extent, hitachi, and some other smaller companys). Intel and Nvidia would both be better off if you were stuck upgrading your machine to play the game, so they'd push for the competition to choose, say, Doom3 over QuakeWorld.
And for the record, all tournament matches are done on official CPL machines, not your own. The only thing you use your machien for at cpl is the giant BYOC lan, although your point still stands for all the times you're playing the game that isnt the big matches in a tourney.
Well, I don't have any charts handy for how many times I've heard people talk about how fucking horrible the SP game was. (repetitive level design and monsters, repetitive gameplay (OOH ANOTHER PDA, I WONDER IF THERES A LOCKER ACCES CODE IN IT.. THERE IS!) etc).
mostly because ut2k4 sucks. Trolling aside, I'd bet a licensing issue. PK is by a new company that wont try to screw CPL over on licensing, unlike Quake and Unreal. On top of that, PK was made to be competitive, specificly in the area that CPL is looking for: Duels. The guy(rxr) that made/maintains the major QuakeWorld competitive mod (KombatTeams Pro) was hired on to painkiller to oversee the multiplayer development, as a result you get a fun and not too unbalanced game. In comparison, UT was meant for 16+ player crazy FFAs above all else, and thus doesnt scale down right for duels.
I could have sworn they announced Doom3 as their world tour game, but maybe that fell through (Or the article is just wrong). I remember watching some PK duels on the big projectors last cpl, but I doubt theyd make it the main event.
It sold, but it was forgotten about.
Gamespys list of multiplayer games
You'll find it way down there at the bottom, below all the demos of games from 1999-2002.
Sad, I really dont mind the 4 player limit (More than enough to duel, and thats what ID games are best at), but something about the game just didnt work. Maybe Q4 will be better, maybe not. we'll see.
"You are telling me that something that requires more time to process to make it look significantly better, is slower than the uglier, slower-computer-friendly version? How long did it take to do the PhD work behind this?"
_ flNextAttack..s ..maxspeed....p Sound.weapons.
No, asshat, I'm saying the DX9 renderer is slow even on a decent card, and that you're better off forcing the game to use a renderer it doesnt want to.
"whatever he calls CPL is up to him"
No, asshat, The CPL is the biggest CS lan in the world. 4500 was the number of people in the byoc last year. want my byoc pub demos?
"Not to mention that the code similarities would likely be there. Even if the engine is "all new," they will still reuse some code. Not everyone likes to reinvent the wheel everyday."
No shit, asshat, thats what I said. The parent poster was saying HL2 wasn't based on quake, and I was saying otherwise. And incase anyone feels like arguing with me..
Core.dll from CS:Source ->
1002B2F4 pushmsec....tfstate.weaponanim..fov.physinfo....m
1002B334 ammo_rockets....ammo_cells..ammo_shells.ammo_nail
1002B374 waterjumptime...flSwimTime..flDuckTime..flTimeSte
Funny, Niether CS nor HL even uses cells or nails, yet those are the exact 4 names of the ammo variables that are used in quake (and still exist in HL1CS.. do a delta_stats in console and you'll see all the variables attached to the player struct)
View-> Page styles-> No style.
Or alternativly install the EditCSS (or webdevbar) plugin and just add a rule of * {background-color: white;color:black;}
Dual Weilds:
RTCW(ET atleast, I dont remember about the original)
Counterstrike (dual elites. completely worthless guns unless you want to humiliate some cal-o clan by using nothing but them in a clan match, but theyre there.)
The Specialists. (Akimbo is an option on just about all pistols in that game, and some SMGs like uzis.)
As you mentioned, the dual MGs in UT.
And a ton of other games/mods.
What, new to console gaming? Nope. Goldeneye for the N64 let you dual any weapon, even mixing between weapons.
Revolution in Online gaming? Nope. I'd say QuakeWorld brought about the only revolution(optimizing for online play). After that its all been evolution.
Jacking vehicles? Hell, even HalfLife (1998) had vehicles in them. They wernt good, but neither are halos (point to steer? how skillless.) Other notable examples: Battlefield 1942, UT2k4.
Not fast enough
What rolls down stairs
Alone or in pairs...
Rolls over your neighbor's dog?
What's great for a snack
And fits on your back?
It's bLog! bLog! bLog!
It's bLo-og, it's bLo-og
It's big, it's heavy
It's wood!
It's bLo-og, bLo-og
It's better than bad
It's good!!!
this one goes out to all my gnaa homiez dat aint with us no mo.
" Um ... HL2 is not quake-based. It's based on "Source", a homebrew engine that has separate rendering paths for DX7, DX8.0, DX8.1, and DX9."
Source is just the working name for the engine. Its not written from scratch, its based on HL1. If it wernt for the legalitys, you could easil run jwz's code comparison on the hl2 source leak and the quake1 source dir and find a ton of similarities.
I've played with the engine for a while now, and even with a DX9 card (fx5600), you're still better off using the dx7 renderer just for the fps boost, but the visual difference is huge.
As for the netcode, CS1.6 was(and is) horrible. Even on a large lan the netcode screwups were apparnt, I saw plenty of people teleporting and shots not registering at CPL Summer 04.
Then CS:S came out, and its even worse because noone has the cpu required to update with the server at a timely frequency. Its like playing against people on dialup, even when theyre only 20ms away from the server.
Yes, it is.
.qc game(mod) source, which is QuakeC.
Quake1 -> Hl1 -> Hl2.
You still see plenty of error references refering to the
HL2 is just a sequential engine update, they didnt rewrite it from the ground up, so it still has its origin in quake.
Like any quake based engine, HL2 will scale down pretty well if you know your way around the console.
Its still far more of a memory whore than its worth, though. By that I mean the ratio of resources required to the ratio of fun just makes it not worth the $50-$80 + cost of hardware if you dont want to run the game in a mode so ugly most will consider you cheating.
Personally, I say long live QuakeWorld
Anything faster than a P1 can run it (and I'm not just talking x86), and its been upgraded far beyond HL1 as far as graphics-- MD3 models, Particle explosions (instead of seeing the same 3 sprites in a row on every explosion), RELIABLE NETCODE (counterstrike players know what I'm talking about), and most importantly, It's fun.
I'm too lazy to check the lower scored posts so someone might have pointed this out already, but yes, they do get commision for everyone they talk out of canceling.
My tip: ask them for their full name so you can report them to their supervisor for harassing you when you just wanted to cancle. Should change their attitude.
I assure you gaining karma is no problem. KarmaWhoring started out as whoring for informative/insightful, not funny. Just look back at the original whore, cmdr^H^H^H^HSignal11.
Getting modded up on slashdot is a game with the difficulty level stuck on easy.
Rather than adding the 50 cap and the stupid word games, they should of added a high score page, and then to combat people with insane ammounts of karma, made it so being modded up has a dropoff relative to your karma; Eg, karma: 10 modded up = karma: 12. karma: 80 modded up = karma: 80.1
Just have RFID rings, changed daily so that TheBadGuys(TM) don't get them. any ring would work for all guns.
Or they could go one step further and go from smart guns to genius guns and use pubkey auth, each gun has all policeforces rings with an expirey date of maybe a week. Someone loses their ring? revoke the key. Each gun could sync with a device in the car.
Of course, then when the terrorists find a way to mass-revoke all keys in new york right before a massive attack..
I'm glad they restrict it. It will be nice to have the ingame population mirror the real world population, so that late at night fewer people are on (not just a ton of asians.)
If you think photoshopped images are real, $15 says you have a playboy subscription.
Gamespy knows.
While I've never fully trusted these numbers (theres huge variance due to inability to filter bots from players), its still obvious nothing comes close to comparing. Its not just linux users that prefer a slightly slower nvidia purely because ati has always been known for bad drivers.
If you had the option of living the rest of your 'real' life as your character in your game, would you?