Why would anyone want to write a game in Java? Gamers still like performance, thats why most games are incredibly optimized and things like direct X exist. For as long as I can see games will continue to be written in native code. C is not that much slower than assembler but Java is a lot slower. And since it is impossible to write large programs like games in assembler a move to C was neccessary. Until the difference between C and Java performance becomes small as the differance between C and ASM, and Java gets so easy to program that C seems like ASM, game will continue to use C/C++
Hey if you think about it for game a K7 will give what almost double the performance? Some people have the extra 400 bucks and want the performance. Especially me, waiting anothe month of so to save up the extra money is worth it in a lot of cases espeacially if you are a gamer, or 3D designer. Very few people otherwise need the power. (I mean if you run a webserver or do other compute intensive stuff, then you can run dual, but most games are only single threaded.)
http://www.sgi.com/fahrenheit/home.html If you look at the menu you will see the item OpenGL: The road ahead As I remember wasn't that the name of Bill's book? I sense a conspiracy here. (If you like conspiracy theories look in the MaximumPC Issue One, there is a theory about MS holding down SGI while Intel takes over nVidia, sticks it to 3Dfx, and then support D3D only so OpenGL on windows dies and the John Carmacks of the land are punished for not using D3D.)
Last I heard Farhenheit was the mixing of Microsoft's Direct3D and Open GL. Microsoft is heavily involved in its creation and is putting parts of it into all future DirectXes. I doubt Microsoft would allow a port of it to Linux. As for COM, I think that KDE people are making a functional equivelent called KOM.
What don't you understand. This is NOT I repeat NOT an Amiga. It has the name Amiga! The OS is a more bloated version of Linux, the hardware will not have all the cool cooprocessors of the Amiga. The new one is Amiga in NAME only. The old amigas had cooprocessors for the FLOPPY drive. The new one will not keep the same architechture and the standards will not hold true!
Look I have used Java, it is slow, anybody who says other wise is utterly clueless. Seriously, a lot of things these days are compute bound. If they weren't there would be no reason to upgrade to a PIII. Even with dedicated 3D hardware there is a huge CPU toll (transform, lighting, for 3D apps final rendering is always done in software, AI, physics.) The only VM worth a damn is the IE one and only if you write windows java. And java is not THAT easy to debug. If you are writing a Java app half the time it is for winodws anyway. Why not just use Visual C++ and MFC. It generates the damn program for you! And C++ is not that hard to debug. Plus Java does not run in Windows 3.1, Lynx, BeOS, DOS, etc.
The thing does not clock 5 times faster, it is 5 times faster. Remember an Alpha clocks slower than a PII but is 3 times faster in FP. Same principle Sonys "emotion engine" is a 300MHz chip that has a vector engine and can do 5 times as many fp calculations per second as a PII.
But this is not an Amiga, it is Linux with stuff added on. They are using X, which takes up 20 MB right there! then you have the OS, the Java VM, etc. How do they think they can fit this into 32 MB. I would not run a multimedia linux system (is that an oxymorn?!) without atleast 128MB. Besides RAM is cheap spend the extra 45 bucks and put a decent amount in.
I know other people have responded to this but I would like to add my 2 cents into the ring. Linux did not have a large userbase as Be in it's second year. Be just went IPO and has to keep quiet before they can start their advertising campaign. Be has no legacy code and is a much better desktop OS Linux. Amiga takes Linux (30 years of hacks and wrappers and extensions) and adds to it 15 year old Amiga stuff and then defunt java stuff from sun. I think if you add the age it makes it 47 years worth of silt. They still use X for god sakes! And don't forget, even if they run transmeta, guess what, you can run BeOS on that too!
So you are saying that it is better to port to YOUR platform than a platform that will advance computing in general? Besides, the PowerPC is a weaker chip in floating point(AKA game code) than even Intel and all a port to it does is give the LinuxPPC people something to play with. If the port was to Alpha, it might make some inroads into the market, especially since upgrading from K7 to Alpha will be so easy.
The topic I was responding to said that Be had no proof that BeOS was faster, just a bunch of marketing phrases. My point was that you can get 600 frames per second through X, that linux threads are slower, and that BFS can do huge filesystem searches very quickly (Some one in another topic posted that he searched every file on his computer with the letter 'E' and it came back with 10,000 hits in a few seconds.) How are any of these figures meaningless? Just because they don't test network performance?
Okay, one test showed that Be threads could be made 10 times (literly) faster than Linux threads. (Btw Linux threads were slower than NT threads.) Second Boot conducted an independant test of 3.1 and were able to blit 600 frames per second using BDirectWindow and 2 PII 300s. 3rd. Use BeOS and feel the responsiveness of the UI. 4th. Look at the specs for BFS. Watch how quickly it can search the file sytem. Need I go on?
Either you are still running DR 1 or you are trying to run it on a K5 type system. BeOS has been more or less rock solid since DR8. 4.5 in particular has never crashed on me.
Actually the Linux file system comes out of the box out of order. Some stuff is in/usr/bin some stuff is in/bin, some stuff is in... Then the/etc directory has 3 files about hosts, Some software wants to install in a specified directory, other software have dependencies hardcoded in and won't work if they don't find that program in that particular directory. In my opinion Linux needs a registry.
Try reformatting the drive first. W2K is to unlike NT4 to work as un upgrade. And W2K does "fucking boot" as you so eleqoently put it. You just have to set it up right.
You do realize that Be interfaces with standard keyboards. Thus if you keyboard is not standard (It takes advantage of undocumented stuff in they standard) then it will not work without an operating system that reproduces the undoumented features. Linux does, Windows does, however BeOS is clean and keeps things that aren't from being used on a BeOS system.
Well if you don't use windows it's kind of hard to use IE now isn't it. I think he was refering to that fact that Win98 has IE wrapped tightly around its bloated little heart(-Boot Magazine, Win98 Preview) and the fact that a lot of program require IE before they even install.
Since when does NT take 100MB of RAM? I have W2K Beta 3 running right now on a 128MB computer. No swap file activity with AOL, 4 IE windows, and Visual Studio 6 open.
COBRA, OLE,COM etc kick ass over fvwm and xterms any day. Nowhere in linux (except the forthcoming KOM) can you take a picture from one program, embed it into another, or take a spreadsheet and embed it into a document, while still retaining the features of the spreadsheet program. I do WORK with computers. But some people like your self seem to think that work only means clicking away at your CLI making programs or editing the files in the/etc directory! It is incredibly arrogent that you think that yours is the only kind of work people do. Try doing 3D modeling in your precious little xterms. Try editing avis, make documents that have embeded spreadsheets, etc. Sorry but Linux HAS to atleast catch up with windows in the GUI department. It has to get OLE, Object based programming, context sensitive actions, and a easy to learn interface. There are different ways of doing things, but in each catagory you can usually compare two things. Even if they do things differently, one is better or worse than the other. CLI will always be better for somethings. (I find my self typing cd.. in explorer) but a good GUI has to be totally integrated, easy to learn, and consitant. Windows,OLE, COM, and COBRA are technologys that are far ahead of fwvm and even KDE in that regard.
There are very few applications where a different GUI style is justified by increased efficiency. Take Truespace. The totally different style is neccessary becuase of the difference between a 3D modeler and a Office app. But often, the time saved by having to click less does not justify the time spent learning the application. Plus most programs let you edit the interface to suit you. You can make macro in HotDog pro and then assign them to a icon. Then complex operations can be done with the click of a button. Also you can move elements around, make links to oft used options, etc. Elements like that really make the whole arguement against standardization kind of fall apart.
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Why would anyone want to write a game in Java? Gamers still like performance, thats why most games are incredibly optimized and things like direct X exist. For as long as I can see games will continue to be written in native code. C is not that much slower than assembler but Java is a lot slower. And since it is impossible to write large programs like games in assembler a move to C was neccessary. Until the difference between C and Java performance becomes small as the differance between C and ASM, and Java gets so easy to program that C seems like ASM, game will continue to use C/C++
I don't see the hight markup. The 550 version barely cost 40$ more than the PIII.
Who in compiles and player mp3 while playing a game? I barley get enough fps as it is (PII 400 , TNT)
Actually since games have lower detail levels than a movie in each frame, it needs a higher frame rate to give the illusion of smooth motion.
Hey if you think about it for game a K7 will give what almost double the performance? Some people have the extra 400 bucks and want the performance. Especially me, waiting anothe month of so to save up the extra money is worth it in a lot of cases espeacially if you are a gamer, or 3D designer. Very few people otherwise need the power. (I mean if you run a webserver or do other compute intensive stuff, then you can run dual, but most games are only single threaded.)
http://www.sgi.com/fahrenheit/home.html
If you look at the menu you will see the item
OpenGL: The road ahead
As I remember wasn't that the name of Bill's book?
I sense a conspiracy here. (If you like conspiracy theories look in the MaximumPC Issue One, there is a theory about MS holding down SGI while Intel takes over nVidia, sticks it to 3Dfx, and then support D3D only so OpenGL on windows dies and the John Carmacks of the land are punished for not using D3D.)
Last I heard Farhenheit was the mixing of Microsoft's Direct3D and Open GL. Microsoft is heavily involved in its creation and is putting parts of it into all future DirectXes. I doubt Microsoft would allow a port of it to Linux. As for COM, I think that KDE people are making a functional equivelent called KOM.
What don't you understand. This is NOT I repeat NOT an Amiga. It has the name Amiga! The OS is a more bloated version of Linux, the hardware will not have all the cool cooprocessors of the Amiga. The new one is Amiga in NAME only. The old amigas had cooprocessors for the FLOPPY drive. The new one will not keep the same architechture and the standards will not hold true!
Look I have used Java, it is slow, anybody who says other wise is utterly clueless. Seriously, a lot of things these days are compute bound. If they weren't there would be no reason to upgrade to a PIII. Even with dedicated 3D hardware there is a huge CPU toll (transform, lighting, for 3D apps final rendering is always done in software, AI, physics.) The only VM worth a damn is the IE one and only if you write windows java. And java is not THAT easy to debug. If you are writing a Java app half the time it is for winodws anyway. Why not just use Visual C++ and MFC. It generates the damn program for you! And C++ is not that hard to debug. Plus Java does not run in Windows 3.1, Lynx, BeOS, DOS, etc.
The thing does not clock 5 times faster, it is 5 times faster. Remember an Alpha clocks slower than a PII but is 3 times faster in FP. Same principle Sonys "emotion engine" is a 300MHz chip that has a vector engine and can do 5 times as many fp calculations per second as a PII.
But this is not an Amiga, it is Linux with stuff added on. They are using X, which takes up 20 MB right there! then you have the OS, the Java VM, etc. How do they think they can fit this into 32 MB. I would not run a multimedia linux system (is that an oxymorn?!) without atleast 128MB. Besides RAM is cheap spend the extra 45 bucks and put a decent amount in.
I know other people have responded to this but I would like to add my 2 cents into the ring. Linux did not have a large userbase as Be in it's second year. Be just went IPO and has to keep quiet before they can start their advertising campaign. Be has no legacy code and is a much better desktop OS Linux. Amiga takes Linux (30 years of hacks and wrappers and extensions) and adds to it 15 year old Amiga stuff and then defunt java stuff from sun. I think if you add the age it makes it 47 years worth of silt. They still use X for god sakes! And don't forget, even if they run transmeta, guess what, you can run BeOS on that too!
So you are saying that it is better to port to YOUR platform than a platform that will advance computing in general? Besides, the PowerPC is a weaker chip in floating point(AKA game code) than even Intel and all a port to it does is give the LinuxPPC people something to play with. If the port was to Alpha, it might make some inroads into the market, especially since upgrading from K7 to Alpha will be so easy.
The topic I was responding to said that Be had no proof that BeOS was faster, just a bunch of marketing phrases. My point was that you can get 600 frames per second through X, that linux threads are slower, and that BFS can do huge filesystem searches very quickly (Some one in another topic posted that he searched every file on his computer with the letter 'E' and it came back with 10,000 hits in a few seconds.) How are any of these figures meaningless? Just because they don't test network performance?
Okay, one test showed that Be threads could be made 10 times (literly) faster than Linux threads. (Btw Linux threads were slower than NT threads.) Second Boot conducted an independant test of 3.1 and were able to blit 600 frames per second using BDirectWindow and 2 PII 300s. 3rd. Use BeOS and feel the responsiveness of the UI.
4th. Look at the specs for BFS. Watch how quickly it can search the file sytem. Need I go on?
Either you are still running DR 1 or you are trying to run it on a K5 type system. BeOS has been more or less rock solid since DR8. 4.5 in particular has never crashed on me.
Actually in windows you can start a program by clicking on the executable.
Actually the Linux file system comes out of the box out of order. Some stuff is in /usr/bin some stuff is in /bin, some stuff is in... Then the /etc directory has 3 files about hosts, Some software wants to install in a specified directory, other software have dependencies hardcoded in and won't work if they don't find that program in that particular directory. In my opinion Linux needs a registry.
Try reformatting the drive first. W2K is to unlike NT4 to work as un upgrade. And W2K does "fucking boot" as you so eleqoently put it. You just have to set it up right.
Yes Linux is sure more faster and more flexibler and more stabler!
You do realize that Be interfaces with standard keyboards. Thus if you keyboard is not standard (It takes advantage of undocumented stuff in they standard) then it will not work without an operating system that reproduces the undoumented features. Linux does, Windows does, however BeOS is clean and keeps things that aren't from being used on a BeOS system.
Well if you don't use windows it's kind of hard to use IE now isn't it. I think he was refering to that fact that Win98 has IE wrapped tightly around its bloated little heart(-Boot Magazine, Win98 Preview) and the fact that a lot of program require IE before they even install.
Since when does NT take 100MB of RAM? I have W2K Beta 3 running right now on a 128MB computer. No swap file activity with AOL, 4 IE windows, and Visual Studio 6 open.
COBRA, OLE,COM etc kick ass over fvwm and xterms any day. Nowhere in linux (except the forthcoming KOM) can you take a picture from one program, embed it into another, or take a spreadsheet and embed it into a document, while still retaining the features of the spreadsheet program. I do WORK with computers. But some people like your self seem to think that work only means clicking away at your CLI making programs or editing the files in the /etc directory! It is incredibly arrogent that you think that yours is the only kind of work people do. Try doing 3D modeling in your precious little xterms. Try editing avis, make documents that have embeded spreadsheets, etc. Sorry but Linux HAS to atleast catch up with windows in the GUI department. It has to get OLE, Object based programming, context sensitive actions, and a easy to learn interface. There are different ways of doing things, but in each catagory you can usually compare two things. Even if they do things differently, one is better or worse than the other. CLI will always be better for somethings. (I find my self typing cd .. in explorer) but a good GUI has to be totally integrated, easy to learn, and consitant. Windows,OLE, COM, and COBRA are technologys that are far ahead of fwvm and even KDE in that regard.
There are very few applications where a different GUI style is justified by increased efficiency. Take Truespace. The totally different style is neccessary becuase of the difference between a 3D modeler and a Office app. But often, the time saved by having to click less does not justify the time spent learning the application. Plus most programs let you edit the interface to suit you. You can make macro in HotDog pro and then assign them to a icon. Then complex operations can be done with the click of a button. Also you can move elements around, make links to oft used options, etc. Elements like that really make the whole arguement against standardization kind of fall apart.