I think NT has poor task scheduling, poor IO scheduling, poor VM management. Now throw in Vista's new GUI thrashing the texture uploads to the video card (because of poor "scene management" having to re-draw everything) along with slow background services and the whole is worse then the sum of the parts. i.e. Bad Synergy
e.g. - Insert a bad CD / DVD into your drive and watch explorer stall - Open a 2 gig file in notepad and watch the VM system go crazy - Try browsing a network when some of the computers are no longer available - Try running without a pagefile (at least this now works in XP)
Every version of Windows gets slower and slower because of more features.
I miss the days of BeOS when every release got faster.
> This has been most visible with 1st gen XBOX with has been a plain PC under the hood and the Celeron 733 powering it, yet the PC ports of XBOX games required 1GHz + processors and much more RAM.
There are a few things you are forgetting about the original XBOX
- it had a Geforce 3.5 and even if games used pixel shaders, most games only used a 640x480 res. Given the old tradeoff between flexibility and speed, the console's strength is speed. - it only had 64 megs of ram, so even with compressed textures, they were low res - it ran a stripped down NT kernel that didn't chew up tons of megabytes like the desktop version does - it had a small & fast directX implementation
> If someone punches you in the face, do you beat them to death with a crowbar? No, you punch them back. If someone pulls a knife on you, do you pull out your grenade launcher?
Why stoop down to their level?
Violence only begets more violence.
Being agressive back is not the ONLY way of defending yourself.
> No, current AI does not exhibit general intelligence. That would be strong AI.
Whatever passes for "AI" would be better called Artificail Ignorance.
The "strong AI" you mentioned, I would call Artifical Intelligence and until Comp Sci and Biologists get a clue what consciousness is, we'll be forever stuck in the Artificial Ignorance mode.
> have people seen monetary inflation causing price increases in the game, or has the population of players offset any growth in money?
All the lev 20 gear has inflated since people having a level 70 (in Outlands where money grows on trees) twink their lower level toons and don't care how much they have to spend.
> Properly designed economies would go a long way to reduce the incentive to cheat.
Unfortunately EVERY mmorpg economy is BROKEN. Once you allow infinity to appear on side of the equation, inflation WILL happen.
i.e. Since there are an infinite amount of (raw) materials, and an infinite supply of gold based on players selling said items (raw materials, weapons, armor, or even vendor trash), and since players can always spend their time to either acquire items to transfer items for money, your economy is broken. There is nothing a designer can do about, except control the time it will take.
The only real solution is to have BOTH a fixed amount of materials, and a fixed amount of gold. The problem is, most players wouldn't find that fun in the long run -- they expect that if they put the time in, they will be rewarded (via money.)
Programming is all about 2 things - problem solving - for other people
The technical aspect is the first, communications is the second.
As a a low level games programmer, proficient in Assembly, C, C++, don't sweat the small stuff. Actually, I'm a little "jealous" of programmers who grok high level languages like pearl, python, ruby, lisp, haskel, eiffel, and shell programming (I just don't love them like I do C). I like to tinker with the nuts-and-bolts, or bits-and-bytes, but I appreciate those who like to use the more abstract, "higher" languages to be freed from the tediousness of the low level details. Figure out what type of programming you enjoy (high or low), and pursue it. Keep "checking in" what the "other side" is doing, for it will expand your paradigms of programming. If you are a high level programmer, learn as much as you can about the low level. Too many programmers don't understand why their code runs slow, because they have bogged down the CPU in inefficient algorithms and implementations. i.e. virtual functions inside an inner loop.
In the workplace, the most important things are: - working with other programmers; i.e. respecting the lead's decision, communicating what problems you are having - when adding new features to existing code, think & beware aware of all the ramfications - learning to read code, and get familar with a cod base. Most your time you will be _maintaining_ code, not adding in a ton of new functionality. - spend time with the debugger, learning how to debug - learn how to become better at estimating tasks. - Whatever tech you learn in school, is mostly obsolete in 10 years. The details are important for your job, but the general practices are important for your career. You need both. - Don't forget to have a life, outside from programming.
> Law can and will never model completely human behavior, nor should it.
That's because laws can never precisely describe "intent", only "action." i.e. You can follow the laws to the letter, and still act unethically.
That's why laws are open to interpretation to determine the "spirit of the law." For every law, you can almost always think of an exception in a special circumstance.
Actually that is one reason I couldn't stand the first few editions -- the rule were such a mess of inconsistencies and contradictions. GURPs was always cleaner designed, but sometimes "good enough" wins the day.
And while the soul of the game is gone, the game is what you make it.
> Why didn't God just create us all as souls in Heaven?
He/She did.
The "problem" came, that he/she also gave everyone free will, and most because lack of experience, wanted to experience the rest of the universe -- on all its dimensions of consciousness: plant, animal, human, etc.
> But no, he has to create us with bodies in a material world and leave us unattended We are neve left alone unattended, it is only your perception. That is your choice if you not willing to listen when God speaks.
> The factual errors in the bible Are designed to provoke people into thinking, about the deeper meanings, not to take things on faith just because somebody said it was so, but to live a certain lifestyle and prove it to yourself.
> There is some solid stuff being done in philosophy, even to the current day.
Alright, enlighten me...
> That does not include the so called "great questions," one of which, the cogito, is at the root of this discussion.
And it has been asked (& answered) since the beginning of time, and will continue to get asked and answer throughout time, but all the knowledge in the universe doesn't have much value if one can't apply it.
> Can God create a stone so heavy that God can't lift it? Answer: Who cares?
You just proved my point. (Another answer is 'mu' -- you are assuming a binary state of truth true/false, when the question is nonsense; and thus the answer too.)
The real point is "How does this question (and your answer) help you in understanding who you are, and why you exist? What the universe is? And why it exists the way it does?""
> Does the universe as we perceive it exist?
If it doesn't exist, then how did you perceive it?
> You have to force some seriously hardcore mind/body dualism to even conceive of a universe that exists without your body.
You are confusing your body with your identity. i.e. If you cut off & destroy your leg do you exist? If we continue doing this, how do we determine the "part" constitutes "you"? The answer is, your body is just a shell, which can be verified by the OBE/NDE. You are a multi-dimensional being: body, mind, spirit. Or as some say, "A Spiritual Being In a Physical Body having a Human Experience." So it is not dualism, but trism, although I wouldn't limit it to that exclusively, as the "All Exists in the One", does not negate the "One Exists in the All." -- both are simultaneously true.
> - Cut scenes that you can't skip (hello Assassin's Creed!)
- Usually it is the idiotic publisher that mandates this to the developer. It sucks.
- For in-game cutscenes, sometimes it is a lazy developer (programming pointing the finger at designers:) because they don't have the time to verify none of the game scripts break the game when they are skipped.
But I agree, dam annoying, especially when you are playing the game for the 2nd, 3rd time -- completley KILLS replayability. If I wanted to watch a movie, I would of rented one!
That is a very nice example. And I would agree with your conclusion.
I think that the grand-parent's original gripe was that philosophy was a lot like intellectual masturbation "It feels good for a while, but doesn't really change anything." and that his conclusion was "That since philosophy can't provide the answer, that it isn't useful."
Philosophy is only the STARTING point, not the finishing one! If you never do anything with your beliefs, they are just that -- empty beliefs. But philosophy drives us to ask "How?" "Why?" and eventually "What do I need to do, in order to understand?"
The secret is in taking belief (philosophy) into action (religion) and arriving at your OWN answers (spirituality). There is a reason and a pattern for EVERYTHING that exists -- partly because the universe is holographic, or stated another way "A Great Mind." Just because most people are unable to find the true source, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. When certain people do, they are labeled as heretics because they upset the status quo of "how we think things really work."
The big problem comes from when people constantly chose one truth over another, because they are lost in the "illusion", and are not able to look past the "allusion." One truth does not negate another, and that a higher perspective is required to resolve the paradox of conflicting truth. Does Time exist? We are under the influence of it in the physical realm, but in a higher realm it does not because it is a dimension of mind. Similarly, Good & Evil could be said to exist here as well, but in a higher perspective there is only good, because the Universe is working towards a goal, whether we are aware of it or not.
I would encourage everyone to explore _every_ philosophy they possibly can, and then come to their own conclusions. There is an answer to every question, if one doesn't give up striving for it -- but will one accept the answer(s) when it doesn't fit one's preconceived ideas of what it should be!
As a game developer (PC,PS2,Wii) Anthony Brock is missing one thing -- the difficulty of porting a fixed-function console to a generic variety PC. i.e. He didn't discuss the poor port of Halo from X-Box to PC. The game was written all in C, emulating a object-orientated system, using hacks such as loading directly to memory to get maximal use of the 64 Megs of memory, using position, velocity, and acceleration of the thumbstick to minimize the dead-zone of the controller, and its low 640x480 resolution lets the GeForce "3.5" run the game's pixel shaders at a decent rate, reduced texture sizes because on a TV crisp textures don't matter as much as compared to high-res textures on a monitor. All these little "nuances" become problems in the PC world because they change the game "Feel."
Console game development took off, because it is about control -- both for 1st party and 3rd party. As developers we _know_ what the target hardware is, and will be. Flexibility and Performance tend to be inversely related. The less flexible something is, the greater the performance can be drawn out. Also, we don't have to waste our time trying to figure out the billion combinations of hardware, scratching our heads why some things work on one system and not on another. And to the end user -- they just want to play the dam game, so it is kind of a no-brainer why console gaming took off.
PC developers are also in a lose-lose situation with regards to graphics -- if they don't have fancy graphics, almost everyone reams on them for having crappy "last-gen" quality. (Everyone in the biz remembers the commercial jealousy of the "Deer Hunter" games.) If they DO have fancy graphics, almost everyone moans that you need such a high-end system. Blizzard seems to have figured out the secret is first making a fun game, and having a good balance of graphic requirements. Thank-fully the pissing contest of which graphic card is better/faster is becoming less and less of an issue, so we can focus more on game play in the future.
The other hold back to PC gaming is Walmart. 90% of games are sold in Walmart. If you game is not being carried by them, good luck getting "decent" sales.
I'm not sure why he is blaming the medium (consoles), when he completely ignored game design. There have been good and bad games on both platforms. Consoles tend to encourage a "tighter UI" (they also tend to lack button customization which annoys me greatly.)
And while gaming these days is almost about licenses -- the publishers thinking "which license can we use to print money." -- I agree with the conclusion, gaming has been "commercialized". The commercial industry doesn't like to take risks, and is usually financially punished when it does. A lot of people loved how Ico was different, but yet financially it wasn't a hit. But it is about utilizing the strengths of the respective platforms. I see Indie games are changing the way the industry thinks, and our salvation. Counter-Strike & Portal came from Indie development. I suspect future popular games will come from people willing to take risks, and not so much concerned about what they "have to lose", but what "they have to gain."
Slashdot Mirror
I think NT has poor task scheduling, poor IO scheduling, poor VM management.
Now throw in Vista's new GUI thrashing the texture uploads to the video card (because of poor "scene management" having to re-draw everything) along with slow background services and the whole is worse then the sum of the parts. i.e. Bad Synergy
e.g.
- Insert a bad CD / DVD into your drive and watch explorer stall
- Open a 2 gig file in notepad and watch the VM system go crazy
- Try browsing a network when some of the computers are no longer available
- Try running without a pagefile (at least this now works in XP)
Every version of Windows gets slower and slower because of more features.
I miss the days of BeOS when every release got faster.
Mod parent up funny!
That shows the corpororate culture difference between Microsoft and Apple brilliantly.
> This has been most visible with 1st gen XBOX with has been a plain PC under the hood and the Celeron 733 powering it, yet the PC ports of XBOX games required 1GHz + processors and much more RAM.
There are a few things you are forgetting about the original XBOX
- it had a Geforce 3.5 and even if games used pixel shaders, most games only used a 640x480 res. Given the old tradeoff between flexibility and speed, the console's strength is speed.
- it only had 64 megs of ram, so even with compressed textures, they were low res
- it ran a stripped down NT kernel that didn't chew up tons of megabytes like the desktop version does
- it had a small & fast directX implementation
Why aren't you being more aware of your surroundings in the first place?
>There are LOTS of specific things to complain about WoW, but commercial success on this scale is hard to dispute.
Popularity != Quality
> If someone punches you in the face, do you beat them to death with a crowbar? No, you punch them back. If someone pulls a knife on you, do you pull out your grenade launcher?
Why stoop down to their level?
Violence only begets more violence.
Being agressive back is not the ONLY way of defending yourself.
And back in the Real World things aren't so cut-n-dry...
i.e.
We use an older version of Alienbrain at work. It does NOT work with IE7. Upgrading Alienbrain is not cheap for a small dev studio.
As they say, "If it ain't broke, why fix it."
> No, current AI does not exhibit general intelligence. That would be strong AI.
Whatever passes for "AI" would be better called Artificail Ignorance.
The "strong AI" you mentioned, I would call Artifical Intelligence and until Comp Sci and Biologists get a clue what consciousness is, we'll be forever stuck in the Artificial Ignorance mode.
> have people seen monetary inflation causing price increases in the game, or has the population of players offset any growth in money?
All the lev 20 gear has inflated since people having a level 70 (in Outlands where money grows on trees) twink their lower level toons and don't care how much they have to spend.
Yeah YHBT HAND ...
"If you thought that science was certain - well, that is just an error on your part."
Richard Feynman
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
-- Albert Einstein
> Properly designed economies would go a long way to reduce the incentive to cheat.
Unfortunately EVERY mmorpg economy is BROKEN. Once you allow infinity to appear on side of the equation, inflation WILL happen.
i.e. Since there are an infinite amount of (raw) materials, and an infinite supply of gold based on players selling said items (raw materials, weapons, armor, or even vendor trash), and since players can always spend their time to either acquire items to transfer items for money, your economy is broken. There is nothing a designer can do about, except control the time it will take.
The only real solution is to have BOTH a fixed amount of materials, and a fixed amount of gold. The problem is, most players wouldn't find that fun in the long run -- they expect that if they put the time in, they will be rewarded (via money.)
> And how would we measure that? Adding content != adding value.
Exactly.
1) Sometimes "removing" content is adding value! (i.e. Star Wars 1 fan edits with less Jar-Jar)
2) What determines "value"? Value is _arbitrary_ between people.
> OpenGL is used in Windows, Linux, OS X, the PS3 (OpenGL ES) and the Wii (some variant apparently).
No, the Wii does not use some variant of OpenGL. The GX library is OpenGL "inspired", but it is not an OpenGL variant.
I know -- I've ported & expanded an OpenGL implementation for the Wii (from the Gamecube.)
That's because CGI strength is environments.
Real things & people look better then CGI characters due to lighting and animation.
Programming is all about 2 things
- problem solving
- for other people
The technical aspect is the first, communications is the second.
As a a low level games programmer, proficient in Assembly, C, C++, don't sweat the small stuff. Actually, I'm a little "jealous" of programmers who grok high level languages like pearl, python, ruby, lisp, haskel, eiffel, and shell programming (I just don't love them like I do C). I like to tinker with the nuts-and-bolts, or bits-and-bytes, but I appreciate those who like to use the more abstract, "higher" languages to be freed from the tediousness of the low level details. Figure out what type of programming you enjoy (high or low), and pursue it. Keep "checking in" what the "other side" is doing, for it will expand your paradigms of programming. If you are a high level programmer, learn as much as you can about the low level. Too many programmers don't understand why their code runs slow, because they have bogged down the CPU in inefficient algorithms and implementations. i.e. virtual functions inside an inner loop.
In the workplace, the most important things are:
- working with other programmers; i.e. respecting the lead's decision, communicating what problems you are having
- when adding new features to existing code, think & beware aware of all the ramfications
- learning to read code, and get familar with a cod base. Most your time you will be _maintaining_ code, not adding in a ton of new functionality.
- spend time with the debugger, learning how to debug
- learn how to become better at estimating tasks.
- Whatever tech you learn in school, is mostly obsolete in 10 years. The details are important for your job, but the general practices are important for your career. You need both.
- Don't forget to have a life, outside from programming.
Hope that helps
> Law can and will never model completely human behavior, nor should it.
That's because laws can never precisely describe "intent", only "action."
i.e. You can follow the laws to the letter, and still act unethically.
That's why laws are open to interpretation to determine the "spirit of the law." For every law, you can almost always think of an exception in a special circumstance.
Actually that is one reason I couldn't stand the first few editions -- the rule were such a mess of inconsistencies and contradictions. GURPs was always cleaner designed, but sometimes "good enough" wins the day.
And while the soul of the game is gone, the game is what you make it.
> Why didn't God just create us all as souls in Heaven?
He/She did.
The "problem" came, that he/she also gave everyone free will, and most because lack of experience, wanted to experience the rest of the universe -- on all its dimensions of consciousness: plant, animal, human, etc.
> But no, he has to create us with bodies in a material world and leave us unattended
We are neve left alone unattended, it is only your perception. That is your choice if you not willing to listen when God speaks.
> The factual errors in the bible
Are designed to provoke people into thinking, about the deeper meanings, not to take things on faith just because somebody said it was so, but to live a certain lifestyle and prove it to yourself.
> There is some solid stuff being done in philosophy, even to the current day.
Alright, enlighten me...
> That does not include the so called "great questions," one of which, the cogito, is at the root of this discussion.
And it has been asked (& answered) since the beginning of time, and will continue to get asked and answer throughout time, but all the knowledge in the universe doesn't have much value if one can't apply it.
> Can God create a stone so heavy that God can't lift it? Answer: Who cares?
You just proved my point. (Another answer is 'mu' -- you are assuming a binary state of truth true/false, when the question is nonsense; and thus the answer too.)
The real point is "How does this question (and your answer) help you in understanding who you are, and why you exist? What the universe is? And why it exists the way it does?""
> Does the universe as we perceive it exist?
If it doesn't exist, then how did you perceive it?
> You have to force some seriously hardcore mind/body dualism to even conceive of a universe that exists without your body.
You are confusing your body with your identity. i.e. If you cut off & destroy your leg do you exist? If we continue doing this, how do we determine the "part" constitutes "you"? The answer is, your body is just a shell, which can be verified by the OBE/NDE. You are a multi-dimensional being: body, mind, spirit. Or as some say, "A Spiritual Being In a Physical Body having a Human Experience." So it is not dualism, but trism, although I wouldn't limit it to that exclusively, as the "All Exists in the One", does not negate the "One Exists in the All." -- both are simultaneously true.
> - Cut scenes that you can't skip (hello Assassin's Creed!)
:) because they don't have the time to verify none of the game scripts break the game when they are skipped.
- Usually it is the idiotic publisher that mandates this to the developer. It sucks.
- For in-game cutscenes, sometimes it is a lazy developer (programming pointing the finger at designers
But I agree, dam annoying, especially when you are playing the game for the 2nd, 3rd time -- completley KILLS replayability. If I wanted to watch a movie, I would of rented one!
I just want proper render-to-texture support.
Mod parent up informative.
That is a very nice example. And I would agree with your conclusion.
I think that the grand-parent's original gripe was that philosophy was a lot like intellectual masturbation "It feels good for a while, but doesn't really change anything." and that his conclusion was "That since philosophy can't provide the answer, that it isn't useful."
Philosophy is only the STARTING point, not the finishing one! If you never do anything with your beliefs, they are just that -- empty beliefs. But philosophy drives us to ask "How?" "Why?" and eventually "What do I need to do, in order to understand?"
The secret is in taking belief (philosophy) into action (religion) and arriving at your OWN answers (spirituality). There is a reason and a pattern for EVERYTHING that exists -- partly because the universe is holographic, or stated another way "A Great Mind." Just because most people are unable to find the true source, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. When certain people do, they are labeled as heretics because they upset the status quo of "how we think things really work."
The big problem comes from when people constantly chose one truth over another, because they are lost in the "illusion", and are not able to look past the "allusion." One truth does not negate another, and that a higher perspective is required to resolve the paradox of conflicting truth. Does Time exist? We are under the influence of it in the physical realm, but in a higher realm it does not because it is a dimension of mind. Similarly, Good & Evil could be said to exist here as well, but in a higher perspective there is only good, because the Universe is working towards a goal, whether we are aware of it or not.
I would encourage everyone to explore _every_ philosophy they possibly can, and then come to their own conclusions. There is an answer to every question, if one doesn't give up striving for it -- but will one accept the answer(s) when it doesn't fit one's preconceived ideas of what it should be!
Peace
> Now they play idiotic action games* on their game consoles
> * see http://www.gamershell.com/articles/884.html on what's wrong with today's games
As a game developer (PC,PS2,Wii) Anthony Brock is missing one thing -- the difficulty of porting a fixed-function console to a generic variety PC. i.e. He didn't discuss the poor port of Halo from X-Box to PC. The game was written all in C, emulating a object-orientated system, using hacks such as loading directly to memory to get maximal use of the 64 Megs of memory, using position, velocity, and acceleration of the thumbstick to minimize the dead-zone of the controller, and its low 640x480 resolution lets the GeForce "3.5" run the game's pixel shaders at a decent rate, reduced texture sizes because on a TV crisp textures don't matter as much as compared to high-res textures on a monitor. All these little "nuances" become problems in the PC world because they change the game "Feel."
Console game development took off, because it is about control -- both for 1st party and 3rd party. As developers we _know_ what the target hardware is, and will be. Flexibility and Performance tend to be inversely related. The less flexible something is, the greater the performance can be drawn out. Also, we don't have to waste our time trying to figure out the billion combinations of hardware, scratching our heads why some things work on one system and not on another. And to the end user -- they just want to play the dam game, so it is kind of a no-brainer why console gaming took off.
PC developers are also in a lose-lose situation with regards to graphics -- if they don't have fancy graphics, almost everyone reams on them for having crappy "last-gen" quality. (Everyone in the biz remembers the commercial jealousy of the "Deer Hunter" games.) If they DO have fancy graphics, almost everyone moans that you need such a high-end system. Blizzard seems to have figured out the secret is first making a fun game, and having a good balance of graphic requirements. Thank-fully the pissing contest of which graphic card is better/faster is becoming less and less of an issue, so we can focus more on game play in the future.
The other hold back to PC gaming is Walmart. 90% of games are sold in Walmart. If you game is not being carried by them, good luck getting "decent" sales.
I'm not sure why he is blaming the medium (consoles), when he completely ignored
game design. There have been good and bad games on both platforms. Consoles tend to encourage a "tighter UI" (they also tend to lack button customization which annoys me greatly.)
And while gaming these days is almost about licenses -- the publishers thinking "which license can we use to print money." -- I agree with the conclusion, gaming has been "commercialized". The commercial industry doesn't like to take risks, and is usually financially punished when it does. A lot of people loved how Ico was different, but yet financially it wasn't a hit. But it is about utilizing the strengths of the respective platforms. I see Indie games are changing the way the industry thinks, and our salvation. Counter-Strike & Portal came from Indie development. I suspect future popular games will come from people willing to take risks, and not so much concerned about what they "have to lose", but what "they have to gain."
Is a different paradigm good or bad?