VMWare doesn't do full system emulation like Virtual PC does. VMWare will pass command directly down to the host CPU which is already x86.
Try the PC version of Virtual PC, without the overhead of different architechures, you'll probably see a much closer relation of speed.
Finally, it looks like your running VMWare on desktops, and Virtual PC on a laptop. The slowness of laptop hard drives will also show a major difference. Just install the demo of Virtual PC onto the machines your running VMWare on and do a head-to-head test of them, you'll get a lot more accurate representation of the softwre.
Why can't a videogame featuring a Nintendo character be innovative?
Look at the progression of the francises from the Super Nintendo -> Nintendo 64.
Sure they feature the same characters, and the stories might be lacking; however, it's the type of game you get that people look for.
With a Mario game, you get a light-hearted platformer with great control. Zelda is a adventure-RPG where you take the control of Link to use your sword and smite evil. Final Fantasy is an RPG series with great music, video, and stories.
The reason series are successful, is because people know what they stand for. Sure people and look at it from the outside and say "Oh boy another Mario game". But to actually sit down and play each game you notice that the game is about a certain quality and fun.
I don't really see your Mario for the xxth time except with the games released by Rare for the N64. They had Bangio 1& 2, Donkey Kong, and probably a few other games that ended up being the same game. These were games that used more or less the same engine, had similar controls, and the same play-style. This truely was paying for the same game more or less.
Finally before you get on Nintendo's case about innovation. Check out Smash Brothers Melee, Animal Crossing, and Pikmin. You'll be hard pressed to find games that play like them or top them in quality.
There is nothing to say a game couldn't be programmed to stream over the internet while playing.
While you might say the bandwidth isn't enough, caching will solve that problem. Just say you want to start a game, the game will then download a small file, maybe 20-30MB. This will include the engine and maybe the first level. As you play subsequent levels are downloaded so they are in cache when you reach them.
Video which is a major space killer could also be stream only where it isn't stored but played as streaming media.
I'm using it with great success. Since your running the experimental client I assume your running windows. Just install the program and limit BitTorrents downloaed to 140Kb/s.
One thing I really like about NetLimiter is that it will carry the limits over to all processes. Say you have three Torrent d/ls going. I have 32Kb/s up so I could limit it to 28Kb/s up and that will allow all three downloads to have to share 28Kb/s while still leaving 4Kb/s so I can still surf the web.
Except that it can't handle as high of bitrate and resolution as QCast can.
I've been using QCast since the day of it's release due to being selected as a beta tester. Overall there are a few user interface issues as dicussed in the review; however, after using it a couple of times the interface becomes second nature.
The one thing surprising about the review is that there is no mention of the video playback problem. Currently video playback isn't recommend for video's whose resolution is about 540ishx360ish (can't remember the exact res). There is also issues with higher bitrate files. Finally there is no ff/rwd.
A update to add ff/rwd is due any day now and playback of the higher res files is also being worked on.
I like QCast and when it works, it works great. However, it doesn't meet my needs which is fansubbed anime playback for VHS copying for an Anime Club's Library. Most of the releases won't playback due to the resolution being 640x480. If the media your playing back is TV rips you make, then you can easily adhere to the restrictions; however, since this doesn't work for me I'm currently happy with the Xbox Media Player.
Note: The XMBP requires a modchip that contains an illegal hacked Microsoft BIOS, and it's compiled illegally (according to it's license) Xbox SDK. QCast only requires the officialy Sony PS2 Network Adapter and will run on unmodded PS2s.
This whole situation was going on with the original Playstation. There were multiple revisions, and some of the first games didn't quite adhere to standards so 3 or 4 games didn't play on new hardware.
This same thing is going on with the Playstation 2, this will actually be the 8th revision of the PS2. Each revision has a newer BIOS which can cause problems with games that aren't coded right. That's were the whole Sony certification comes in. It checks games to make sure they will adhere to standards so that they work properly with the new revisions of the consoles.
The contest ends in December AFAIK. The complete prize money is for a 100% unmoddified system. You can get partial prizes for needing other things like 007 and a memory card.
If you go the memory card route you won't need to open your Xbox if you don't mind booting 007 each time.
The only way to get a complete solution would be to find Microsoft's private key. You can then sign a Linux executable as being bootable off a CD-R. Anyone could then download, burn, and run it on a unmodded system then. If you want to help find it, and take a shot at winning the money, join the Operation Project X project http://www.operationprojectx.com/main.asp. Who knows you might be lucky and walk away with a nice chunk of change.
Then how does the Unreal engine do it? If you played Unreal Tournament you would know that updates to the various video renders where just DLLs which worked much in the same way as I described.
I'm not saying that the display cannot be optimized for the specific API being used. I guess my describing it as a plug-in system was thoural enough. The game engine just needs a standard interface that the various renderers support. There is nothing stopping you from optimizing a specific DLL. Sure most of your coding will be around one API that's why game like Unreal, and Ultima IX preformed much better in Glide than Direct3D.
While you write your interface you must think about the broadest set of features available to you via the different APIs you wish to support. Sure it won't run as good on some platforms as others, but if you could just recompile your code and get max preformance wouldn't everyone just code in SDL and OpenGL? You will have to code in preformance hacks for each situation; however, the plug-ins eliminate the need to code large portions of the engine.
If you write your own graphics engine you can design it to support a plug-in architure.
If you design your plug-in system well, it isn't surprising that you could write plugs for various API to make the most out of them.
A normal Windows PC game would go like this:
Game Engine -> Direct X -> Display Driver -> Graphics Card Internal Code
A plug-in system would be:
Game Engine -> Plug-in (DirectX,OpenGL,etc) -> 3D API (DirectX,OpenGL,etc) -> Display Drivers -> Graphics Card Internal Code
This way when you are porting to another OS you don't have to worry about all the features your using be supported by OpenGL patches. With this system it would be possible to develope an engine that contained output plug-ins for the Windows (DirectX), Linux(OpenGL), OSX(OpenGL), PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube. The only place I see issues with running it on the PS2 due to having to stream textures rather than loading everything into video RAM.
Why, you may ask this isn't done more? It's Simple. Most game are designed for a target platform and coded directly for it. Later when it is decided to have the game go multi-platform, then the issues appear. If you plan on going multi-platform from the start you can design more your routines more efficiently.
Why not just plan to make all games multi-platform? Developing for multiple platforms is more difficult and takes more time and money. It's alot easier to say "I'm creating a Windows game" and then just have your engine output to DirectX. Later when you want to port to Linux or OSX and need to use OpenGL, you run into the difficulties.
Advances in Display Technologies
on
LCD Overtaking CRT
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
While I agree with a the posts pointing out that LCDs are much more expensive than CRTs; however, this does state that LCDs are getting pretty decent market penetration.
The one main issue I currently see if LCDs, is that they are really good at a specific resolution/refresh rate and everything else either has borders or looks crappy. CRTs also have this limitation; however, looking at a CRT running too high for it's dotpitch looks alot better than a LCD doing the same.
Hopefully, we will begin to see the ability of the OS to run at a specified resolution, and then scale everything to a proporanite amount. I know work is being done on this, but the greater need for it can push development along.
For those of you who aren't sure what I'm taking about try this. Set your monitor to 800x600, then 1024x768, and so on going higher and higher. As you can see everything begins to shrink down in size the higher you go. With scaling it would work differently.
Let's say your monitor's native resolution is 1280x960. You will always run at this resolution; however, the everything is scaled. If you have it scaled to 640x480, everything would be 2x the size it would normally be. Sure having 1/2, and 1/3 of sizes and make things look odd, but it's better than what we currently have.
As for games using this technology. You could have a 3d game. It's running in 1280x960, everything is the same size as at 640x480; however, everything can be alot sharper looking. Some games currently do this, but most still have there HUDs shrink the higher you go. With this 2d objects can also be scaled easily. Also it won't be the responibilty of the game to do this, the OS and display drivers will handle it.
Finally by having the display drivers doing the calculations for scaling, other effects can be added. If anyone has tried any emulators such as the SNES ones, you will see that there are a variety of rendering options. You can select how images are stretched/scaled or more advanced things like Super Eagle that antialias 2D and give it a unique look. Since the display driver is doing the rendering of the scaling, these other effects could be added. Most likely they could even be done in hardware on your graphics card.
With all that said will I be buying a LCD display soon? Nope, I'll wait until they can do 1600x1200/85Hz. I need my games to run smooth.:)
Currently ~$17,191,872.77 USD
The current exchange rate is 1 GBP = 1.56290 USD.
Odd that the Canandian Dollar recently rose in value to 1.48 CND = 1 USD. I was 1.54-1.56 = 1 for a long time.
When they ask why you won't give them the password, just makeup some arcahic response.
Re:Tech support for your family??
on
Family Tech Support
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Just do what Dell, Gateway, etc do.
Create a bootable CD that when placed in the drive reimages it to what it originally was when you gave it to them. To make it easier, setup their computer's ISP and such and then make the image.
Sure they lose files; however, it's what most computer companies make you do. You could always move My Docs, Favs, etc to another partition that doesn't get overwritten if you really care.
You wouldn't need to cache the entire disk into RAM.
If the game is designed properly certain levels should only need a set number of resources.
You could also do what the Xbox does. The Xbox has 3 ~800MB partitions setup purely for caching games. Each game you play gets on cache partition and they are rolled over if you play four games. Some Xbox games place their common resources directly on the cache partition during startup and display of the company logos.
After this is done all the common data or most of the data used in a level is on the HD. Only level specific data such as the map layouts that are loaded when you start a level are kept on the disk. This way you get a load inbetween levels, but there isn't a sputter during play of the level because the data it needs thats not in RAM is on the HD.
I view this as a definate plus. When the CD-ROM was originally released many computer games ran directly off the CD and only used the HD to store save files and maybe the executable to allow patching. As time progressed now more and more data is put on the HD, the CD has effectively become just one really large floppy disk for the game to be destributed on. With any hope this change will occur and lead to more efficient game design.
A friend had a AMD K6-400 Linux box, and P3-1GHZ running all day at the same time. This room went up to about 90 in the dead of winter. We had to crack this window to cool off.
That's bullshit.
You pay $2000-$15,000 for 3 months of uber-speed internet. Sure you get a piece of paper that says you know some shit, but seriously. College if for high speed internet, sex, and drugs. You can generally hit your limit in less than a minute if your on the right site.
Me I play $45/month for 1500/256 DSL, and I have unlimited DL/UL. I have pulled multi-gb d/ls without any problems.
My advice for your friend to switch his ISP since he's getting jacked.
>It's annoying to have to walk my dog.
It's YOUR choice to have a dog.
>It's annoying to have to pay my taxes.
YOU choose to live in this country. Go somewhere else if you don't want to pay.
>It's annoying to have to wipe the spooge off of my chin when I wank.
Don't wank... you have a choice.
>It's annoying to have to be nice to people instead of punching them over and over again in the groin.
You punch people in the groin? GAY!!! Seriously whats stopping you from kicking them in the groin over and over again? There are consequences if you do that... but you have a choice.
>It's annoying to have to take off my shoes when I go to the airport.
What airport are you going to? And if you don't want to take them off... don't, just get beatup by security... you have a choice.
>It's annoying to have to use a napkin.
Stop eating messy food... you have a choice
>It's annoying to have to pay my cable TV bill no matter whether I watch it or not.
Stop subscribing to cable... you have a choice.
>It's annoying to have to deal with people like you on Slashdot.
Don't read Slashdot... you have a choice.
Notice how I shot down each of your examples with "YOU HAVE A CHOICE". You don't have a choice with spam.
Calm down.. I agree this is on topic; however, you can't expect everyone to know that Cliff Hanger was a laser disk game that used footage from the Lupin III movie Castle of Cagliostro.
Slashdot Mirror
Apples to PCs.
VMWare doesn't do full system emulation like Virtual PC does. VMWare will pass command directly down to the host CPU which is already x86.
Try the PC version of Virtual PC, without the overhead of different architechures, you'll probably see a much closer relation of speed.
Finally, it looks like your running VMWare on desktops, and Virtual PC on a laptop. The slowness of laptop hard drives will also show a major difference. Just install the demo of Virtual PC onto the machines your running VMWare on and do a head-to-head test of them, you'll get a lot more accurate representation of the softwre.
It's a small 5 button pyramid that requires logic, mathmatic, scientific, and critical thinking to solve all 100 of it's puzzles.
The device will talk during different puzzles, and you have to figure out the solution.
Hasbro has some information about it here: http://www.hasbro.com/nemesisfactor/?CFID=19321184 &CFTOKEN=92808386#
Why can't a videogame featuring a Nintendo character be innovative?
Look at the progression of the francises from the Super Nintendo -> Nintendo 64.
Sure they feature the same characters, and the stories might be lacking; however, it's the type of game you get that people look for.
With a Mario game, you get a light-hearted platformer with great control. Zelda is a adventure-RPG where you take the control of Link to use your sword and smite evil. Final Fantasy is an RPG series with great music, video, and stories.
The reason series are successful, is because people know what they stand for. Sure people and look at it from the outside and say "Oh boy another Mario game". But to actually sit down and play each game you notice that the game is about a certain quality and fun.
I don't really see your Mario for the xxth time except with the games released by Rare for the N64. They had Bangio 1& 2, Donkey Kong, and probably a few other games that ended up being the same game. These were games that used more or less the same engine, had similar controls, and the same play-style. This truely was paying for the same game more or less.
Finally before you get on Nintendo's case about innovation. Check out Smash Brothers Melee, Animal Crossing, and Pikmin. You'll be hard pressed to find games that play like them or top them in quality.
There is nothing to say a game couldn't be programmed to stream over the internet while playing.
While you might say the bandwidth isn't enough, caching will solve that problem. Just say you want to start a game, the game will then download a small file, maybe 20-30MB. This will include the engine and maybe the first level. As you play subsequent levels are downloaded so they are in cache when you reach them.
Video which is a major space killer could also be stream only where it isn't stored but played as streaming media.
Old Woman, Grandma type person.
It should be a 40GB Maxtor drive like the HDD released in Japan, and the ones that come with the Japanese, US, and Europe Linux Kits.
I'm using it with great success. Since your running the experimental client I assume your running windows. Just install the program and limit BitTorrents downloaed to 140Kb/s.
One thing I really like about NetLimiter is that it will carry the limits over to all processes. Say you have three Torrent d/ls going. I have 32Kb/s up so I could limit it to 28Kb/s up and that will allow all three downloads to have to share 28Kb/s while still leaving 4Kb/s so I can still surf the web.
Also, he called himself Eracoy(sp?) Pliskin, and the Eracoy(sp?) is a type of snake.
I've been using QCast since the day of it's release due to being selected as a beta tester. Overall there are a few user interface issues as dicussed in the review; however, after using it a couple of times the interface becomes second nature.
The one thing surprising about the review is that there is no mention of the video playback problem. Currently video playback isn't recommend for video's whose resolution is about 540ishx360ish (can't remember the exact res). There is also issues with higher bitrate files. Finally there is no ff/rwd.
A update to add ff/rwd is due any day now and playback of the higher res files is also being worked on.
I like QCast and when it works, it works great. However, it doesn't meet my needs which is fansubbed anime playback for VHS copying for an Anime Club's Library. Most of the releases won't playback due to the resolution being 640x480. If the media your playing back is TV rips you make, then you can easily adhere to the restrictions; however, since this doesn't work for me I'm currently happy with the Xbox Media Player.
Note: The XMBP requires a modchip that contains an illegal hacked Microsoft BIOS, and it's compiled illegally (according to it's license) Xbox SDK. QCast only requires the officialy Sony PS2 Network Adapter and will run on unmodded PS2s.
This whole situation was going on with the original Playstation. There were multiple revisions, and some of the first games didn't quite adhere to standards so 3 or 4 games didn't play on new hardware.
This same thing is going on with the Playstation 2, this will actually be the 8th revision of the PS2. Each revision has a newer BIOS which can cause problems with games that aren't coded right. That's were the whole Sony certification comes in. It checks games to make sure they will adhere to standards so that they work properly with the new revisions of the consoles.
If you go the memory card route you won't need to open your Xbox if you don't mind booting 007 each time.
The only way to get a complete solution would be to find Microsoft's private key. You can then sign a Linux executable as being bootable off a CD-R. Anyone could then download, burn, and run it on a unmodded system then. If you want to help find it, and take a shot at winning the money, join the Operation Project X project http://www.operationprojectx.com/main.asp. Who knows you might be lucky and walk away with a nice chunk of change.
http://xecuter.gotmod.com/sellers.htm
You get sellers in the US, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
You still might have a problem going UK -> France or something but I don't know since there is no issues with state to state shipping.
http://slashdot.org/faq/suggestions.shtml#su900
I'm not saying that the display cannot be optimized for the specific API being used. I guess my describing it as a plug-in system was thoural enough. The game engine just needs a standard interface that the various renderers support. There is nothing stopping you from optimizing a specific DLL. Sure most of your coding will be around one API that's why game like Unreal, and Ultima IX preformed much better in Glide than Direct3D.
While you write your interface you must think about the broadest set of features available to you via the different APIs you wish to support. Sure it won't run as good on some platforms as others, but if you could just recompile your code and get max preformance wouldn't everyone just code in SDL and OpenGL? You will have to code in preformance hacks for each situation; however, the plug-ins eliminate the need to code large portions of the engine.
If you design your plug-in system well, it isn't surprising that you could write plugs for various API to make the most out of them.
A normal Windows PC game would go like this: Game Engine -> Direct X -> Display Driver -> Graphics Card Internal Code
A plug-in system would be: Game Engine -> Plug-in (DirectX,OpenGL,etc) -> 3D API (DirectX,OpenGL,etc) -> Display Drivers -> Graphics Card Internal Code
This way when you are porting to another OS you don't have to worry about all the features your using be supported by OpenGL patches. With this system it would be possible to develope an engine that contained output plug-ins for the Windows (DirectX), Linux(OpenGL), OSX(OpenGL), PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube. The only place I see issues with running it on the PS2 due to having to stream textures rather than loading everything into video RAM.
Why, you may ask this isn't done more? It's Simple. Most game are designed for a target platform and coded directly for it. Later when it is decided to have the game go multi-platform, then the issues appear. If you plan on going multi-platform from the start you can design more your routines more efficiently.
Why not just plan to make all games multi-platform? Developing for multiple platforms is more difficult and takes more time and money. It's alot easier to say "I'm creating a Windows game" and then just have your engine output to DirectX. Later when you want to port to Linux or OSX and need to use OpenGL, you run into the difficulties.
While I agree with a the posts pointing out that LCDs are much more expensive than CRTs; however, this does state that LCDs are getting pretty decent market penetration.
The one main issue I currently see if LCDs, is that they are really good at a specific resolution/refresh rate and everything else either has borders or looks crappy. CRTs also have this limitation; however, looking at a CRT running too high for it's dotpitch looks alot better than a LCD doing the same.
Hopefully, we will begin to see the ability of the OS to run at a specified resolution, and then scale everything to a proporanite amount. I know work is being done on this, but the greater need for it can push development along.
For those of you who aren't sure what I'm taking about try this. Set your monitor to 800x600, then 1024x768, and so on going higher and higher. As you can see everything begins to shrink down in size the higher you go. With scaling it would work differently.
Let's say your monitor's native resolution is 1280x960. You will always run at this resolution; however, the everything is scaled. If you have it scaled to 640x480, everything would be 2x the size it would normally be. Sure having 1/2, and 1/3 of sizes and make things look odd, but it's better than what we currently have.
As for games using this technology. You could have a 3d game. It's running in 1280x960, everything is the same size as at 640x480; however, everything can be alot sharper looking. Some games currently do this, but most still have there HUDs shrink the higher you go. With this 2d objects can also be scaled easily. Also it won't be the responibilty of the game to do this, the OS and display drivers will handle it.
Finally by having the display drivers doing the calculations for scaling, other effects can be added. If anyone has tried any emulators such as the SNES ones, you will see that there are a variety of rendering options. You can select how images are stretched/scaled or more advanced things like Super Eagle that antialias 2D and give it a unique look. Since the display driver is doing the rendering of the scaling, these other effects could be added. Most likely they could even be done in hardware on your graphics card.
With all that said will I be buying a LCD display soon? Nope, I'll wait until they can do 1600x1200/85Hz. I need my games to run smooth. :)
Currently ~$17,191,872.77 USD The current exchange rate is 1 GBP = 1.56290 USD. Odd that the Canandian Dollar recently rose in value to 1.48 CND = 1 USD. I was 1.54-1.56 = 1 for a long time.
When they ask why you won't give them the password, just makeup some arcahic response.
Create a bootable CD that when placed in the drive reimages it to what it originally was when you gave it to them. To make it easier, setup their computer's ISP and such and then make the image.
Sure they lose files; however, it's what most computer companies make you do. You could always move My Docs, Favs, etc to another partition that doesn't get overwritten if you really care.
If the game is designed properly certain levels should only need a set number of resources.
You could also do what the Xbox does. The Xbox has 3 ~800MB partitions setup purely for caching games. Each game you play gets on cache partition and they are rolled over if you play four games. Some Xbox games place their common resources directly on the cache partition during startup and display of the company logos.
After this is done all the common data or most of the data used in a level is on the HD. Only level specific data such as the map layouts that are loaded when you start a level are kept on the disk. This way you get a load inbetween levels, but there isn't a sputter during play of the level because the data it needs thats not in RAM is on the HD.
I view this as a definate plus. When the CD-ROM was originally released many computer games ran directly off the CD and only used the HD to store save files and maybe the executable to allow patching. As time progressed now more and more data is put on the HD, the CD has effectively become just one really large floppy disk for the game to be destributed on. With any hope this change will occur and lead to more efficient game design.
I live in michigan to.
A friend had a AMD K6-400 Linux box, and P3-1GHZ running all day at the same time. This room went up to about 90 in the dead of winter. We had to crack this window to cool off.
That's bullshit. You pay $2000-$15,000 for 3 months of uber-speed internet. Sure you get a piece of paper that says you know some shit, but seriously. College if for high speed internet, sex, and drugs. You can generally hit your limit in less than a minute if your on the right site. Me I play $45/month for 1500/256 DSL, and I have unlimited DL/UL. I have pulled multi-gb d/ls without any problems. My advice for your friend to switch his ISP since he's getting jacked.
>It's annoying to have to walk my dog.
It's YOUR choice to have a dog.
>It's annoying to have to pay my taxes.
YOU choose to live in this country. Go somewhere else if you don't want to pay.
>It's annoying to have to wipe the spooge off of my chin when I wank.
Don't wank... you have a choice.
>It's annoying to have to be nice to people instead of punching them over and over again in the groin.
You punch people in the groin? GAY!!! Seriously whats stopping you from kicking them in the groin over and over again? There are consequences if you do that... but you have a choice.
>It's annoying to have to take off my shoes when I go to the airport.
What airport are you going to? And if you don't want to take them off... don't, just get beatup by security... you have a choice.
>It's annoying to have to use a napkin.
Stop eating messy food... you have a choice
>It's annoying to have to pay my cable TV bill no matter whether I watch it or not.
Stop subscribing to cable... you have a choice.
>It's annoying to have to deal with people like you on Slashdot.
Don't read Slashdot... you have a choice.
Notice how I shot down each of your examples with "YOU HAVE A CHOICE". You don't have a choice with spam.
Go back under your bridge Troll.
Calm down.. I agree this is on topic; however, you can't expect everyone to know that Cliff Hanger was a laser disk game that used footage from the Lupin III movie Castle of Cagliostro.
3. Sell account on eBay There don't appear to be any accounts at the moment; however, they are there from time to time.