> Is it only me, or Halo (on Xbox) has some of the worst physics engine I've EVER seen?
It's just you.;-)
When you're in the jeep, look for the blue carat ^ in the middle of the screen. What makes the jeep so difficult to drive at first, is that arrow points to where your jeep will go, irregardless of where your wheels are pointed. If you grok that, handling the jeep is just 2nd nature.
> the damn game developers [ensemblestudios.com] or Microsoft, I don't know which one
Ensemble Studios are the game developers. Microsoft is the publisher
> do some sort of a check on the size of your dat files which holds game data during game play, i.e. like 10000 gold, 20000 food, 10000 stone etc etc, and if your file size is greater, it is what is called a "Sync Error"...
Everyone has to be using the same networking code (i.e. game version)
One person out of sync means the game is in unknown game state, which is bad for peer-2-peer gaming.
One of the programmers who worked on Age of Kings wrote up this interesting article on hacking/cheating:
> The corallary to this is, don't send the client anything more than they REALLY need to know.
The name for this is called "selective disclosure."
You're post is correct & informative -- selective disclosure doesn't magically make a game "hack proof" -- it just raises a lot of (other) thorny issues.
> And the industry move from 16-bit samples to 24-bit samples for sound seem equally pointless... I don't think *anyone* can distinguish 65,535 levels of amplitude for sound, much less 16.7 million.
There *IS* a reason for higher samples: to prevent banding when doing "audio blending." In plain English: playing multiple samples at the same time to reduce (audio) artifacts.
I'm a graphics guy, so I'll give a few analogys.
Lets say you have a 16-bit framebuffer (65536 colors), and want to show partially transparent smoke. With each layer of smoke you add (blend) to the screen, you will notice artifacts (banding) due to the lack of gradients. If you remember the old Voodoo's 1 (which only supported 16-bit color (well technically 21-bit:)) you could easily see the artifacts.
i.e. (Not the greatest examples, but they should help you see the difference)
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/games/oldnews/990703.ht ml (Scroll down to the bottom), and
http://www.riva3d.com/v32.html
It's the same reason commodity graphics use 32-bits per pixel -- It's good enough. However, where detail matters, even 8-bits/channel is too low, 16-bit/channel is perfect for film -- that's 2^(16*4) = 64 bpp (bits per pixel) = 1.8e19.
The reason:
16-bit graphics only has 32 gradients (5 bits/channel) available (per R,G,B)
32-bit graphics has 4 channels, each with 256 gradients (per R,G,B,A)
The greater the number of gradients you have available to you, the less you degrade the signal, when you mix in other sources.
Now true, 16-bit audio, is only one channel. But if you want to mix channels together you could naively do something like:
channelOutput = (c1 + c2 +... + cn) / n, which effectively drops the bottom few bits. (Should be Log2(n) but I haven't double checked the math.)
Now, you do have a point, most people won't notice any difference in 16-bit samples, and that there is decreasing returns on quality (i.e. 64-bit audio samples sound exactly the same as 32-bit audio samples.) But if you're creating/mixing audio, you want the highest quality you can afford.
Cheers
Re:What's wrong with Live!?
on
Testing the Audigy
·
· Score: 2, Informative
> I still use a SB16, and it's all I need.
When I swapped my ISA SB16 out for a PCI SB Live! (Platinum), a few years ago, my Quake (1) frame rate doubled! I wish I had know that before, as I would of upgraded to PCI long ago.
You might want to spend the $35 and get a SB Live! Value to see if your system performance is being held back by old ISA technology.
> > Of course, we will never know what came "before" or why the Universe exists in the first place.
You took my asking "And your proof is?" a bit too literal.
Knowing something is different from being able to prove something. It's entirely possible to know why the universe exists, but not be able to prove it.
> Since we need to "observe/deduce" to "know" anything we cannot "observe/deduce" is what "we will never know".
I disagree. You're forgotting about the power of logic's deduction, and more importantly induction.
> Now if you define universe differently (e.g. as the "sum" of ) this might not hold.
Yes, if you define the universe as more then just the physical.
Modern C++ Design is the most advanced C++ book out there, and EVERY C++ programmer should have this masterpiece. The perfect blend of generic programming and object orientation programming is just beautiful. (The multiparadigm support of C++ is what makes it so powerfull.)
> Bullshit - just like your opinion that Mutilple inheritance is a good thing.
> Look, MI might be good if you're some 31337 haX0r who's code will never have to be looked at,
> but if you get paid to code(God help us) then you would realize that the clusterfuck of MI exponentially decreases the maintainability of a project.
I think you're missing the point of MI: MI should be used to inherit interfaces.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, just because you can't see the usefullness of a language feature.
> I must mention "Once upon a time in China" and "New Legend of Shaolin"
Cool. Thx for the movie recommendation! I was looking to expand my Jet Li DVD section but was unsure which ones on his discography were actually worth getting.
I'm *REAL* glad a friend of mine told me, back in college, "You HAVE to check out this video of Jet Li".
I go: "Who is Jet Li??"
He replies "You've never heard of Jet Li!?!? Watch this tape!!"
It was Fist of Legend, and my jaw dropped at how good it was.
Unfortunately, me being a dumb@$$, I completely forgot the title! and could only partially remember Jet Li's name. I was estatic when I finally tracked it down on DVD this year.
Now if only I could get a review on each one of
Jet Li's other movies, so I knew which ones were ones I should pick up.;-)
> Just curious as to why you think the declarations are more logical one way than the other....
> Is that just personal choice/comfort or a more fundamental difference?
Functionaly, there is no difference.
Personal comfort w/ respect to formatting, white space, and not needing superfluous tokens.
I like to arrange variables in a "table" format.
i.e.
intnWidth ;
intnHeight;
char*pTexels;
Now you can do the same thing in Pascal, but the C/C++ just seems more compact and unclutted:
var
nWidth:Integer;
nHeight:Integer;
pTexels:^Texture;
I find this more readable too:
void foo(
intfoo
, floatfoo2
, char*foo3 )
{
}
I guess it's the same reason I like my HP calc -- RPN just seems more natural.
Not trolling or meaning to start a "holy war", as this is just a personal opinion:
- Declarations are backwards, due to the awkward grammer: name type
Compared to the more logical C/C++ way: type name
- The distinction between functions and procedures (the language sports an artifical difference.) The lack of parenthesis in the declaration make it difficult to quickly visually spot functions.
- Operators, or the lack of them (no bit shifts, scope operator, namespaces?) i.e.:= for assign? Just give me the dam equal sign already!:)
- Too wordy. { } are don't clutter my code whitespace, like 'begin' 'end' do.
In short, I just hate how the language looks.
It's the same as a person liking one spoken language over another. Sure they both can explain concepts, but which one is more compact, and is "fluent" for the person?
Pascal is a great teaching language, and Delphi is very impressive (Borland has always had lightning fast compiles on their Pascal languages, due to the grammar.) But I'd rather take a language I hate less (C/C++) then one that gives me a grammer that I hate (Pascal & sons.)
I like the multiparadigm support of C++.
i.e. procedural, object orientated, and generic programming paradigms.
For me, Pascal++ is just plain wrong, but if you're productive at using it, hey, more power to you!
> Create a system where addresses can be "authorized-only", similar to how ICQ can work: to receive mail from someone, you must authorize them to send to you.
Good point, but bad example.;-)
i.e. I have a version of ICQ (98a) that I can authorize anyone, even though they didn't give their authorization.
The real way to solve the unsolicited email problem, is to use something like PGP. i.e. Authenticate the sender before recieving something from them.
> The renaissance, the richest period of exploration and innovation in human history happened
> when the controls imposed by the Catholic church started to break down and both religous and scientific information began to flow freely.
The next renaissance will be when the mass population realizes and accepts that intellectual property rights are neither. (Another interesting read is Intellectual Monopoly Laws versus True Property Rights) The scientific and mathematical community learnt this years ago. They publish formulas, constants, and theories in the name of progress.
Does that mean I'm against copyright? No. But I shouldn't need copyright to tell me that I should respect the author's distribution plans.
i.e.
An audio CD contains JUST numbers. It's illegal to share numbers now?? That doesn't make much sense. What's next, patenting numbers? Oh wait, I forgot that already happened.
The artists convert their time and expressions into a message that can be cheaply (and efficiently) be copied. The problem is how can we make it convient (and cheap) for the majority* of people to pay and reimburse the artists. DRM does nothing to solve that problem.
The other root issue is, when I "purchase" a song, am I given the right to make "unlimited backups" ? Do we need laws to dictate what number is morally and ethically alright?
* There will always be people who want everything for free. But I believe the majority of people are willing to pay for a tangible product, as long as the price is right.
"The BeOS Bible" by Scott Hacker has a 3 page blurb on why Mac and Windows buggered up file extensions. (Mac assumes that the viewer of a file is the same as its creator. Windows has the problem that if you rename the file, double-clicking on the file no longer brings up the proper app. Window's "Open With" is a hack, but a workable one.)
Be's solution was to use the mime class/type. Even executables use this! i.e. If there is no app to handle image/jpeg it looks for apps that can handle image/*
I can quote more from the book if people are interested.
Slashdot Mirror
> Is it only me, or Halo (on Xbox) has some of the worst physics engine I've EVER seen?
;-)
It's just you.
When you're in the jeep, look for the blue carat ^ in the middle of the screen. What makes the jeep so difficult to drive at first, is that arrow points to where your jeep will go, irregardless of where your wheels are pointed. If you grok that, handling the jeep is just 2nd nature.
Cheers
One thing that drives me nuts in Linux is that the dam file system is case sensitive.
Can someone tell me WHY a file system needs to be case sensitive from the user's point of view?
> the damn game developers [ensemblestudios.com] or Microsoft, I don't know which one
...
Ensemble Studios are the game developers. Microsoft is the publisher
> do some sort of a check on the size of your dat files which holds game data during game play, i.e. like 10000 gold, 20000 food, 10000 stone etc etc, and if your file size is greater, it is what is called a "Sync Error"
Everyone has to be using the same networking code (i.e. game version)
One person out of sync means the game is in unknown game state, which is bad for peer-2-peer gaming.
One of the programmers who worked on Age of Kings wrote up this interesting article on hacking/cheating:
How to Hurt the Hackers The Scoop on Internet Cheating and How You Can Combat It [07.24.00]
Cheers
> The corallary to this is, don't send the client anything more than they REALLY need to know.
The name for this is called "selective disclosure."
You're post is correct & informative -- selective disclosure doesn't magically make a game "hack proof" -- it just raises a lot of (other) thorny issues.
> And the industry move from 16-bit samples to 24-bit samples for sound seem equally pointless... I don't think *anyone* can distinguish 65,535 levels of amplitude for sound, much less 16.7 million.
:)) you could easily see the artifacts.
t ml (Scroll down to the bottom), and
... + cn) / n, which effectively drops the bottom few bits. (Should be Log2(n) but I haven't double checked the math.)
There *IS* a reason for higher samples: to prevent banding when doing "audio blending." In plain English: playing multiple samples at the same time to reduce (audio) artifacts.
I'm a graphics guy, so I'll give a few analogys.
Lets say you have a 16-bit framebuffer (65536 colors), and want to show partially transparent smoke. With each layer of smoke you add (blend) to the screen, you will notice artifacts (banding) due to the lack of gradients. If you remember the old Voodoo's 1 (which only supported 16-bit color (well technically 21-bit
i.e. (Not the greatest examples, but they should help you see the difference)
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/games/oldnews/990703.h
http://www.riva3d.com/v32.html
It's the same reason commodity graphics use 32-bits per pixel -- It's good enough. However, where detail matters, even 8-bits/channel is too low, 16-bit/channel is perfect for film -- that's 2^(16*4) = 64 bpp (bits per pixel) = 1.8e19.
The reason:
16-bit graphics only has 32 gradients (5 bits/channel) available (per R,G,B)
32-bit graphics has 4 channels, each with 256 gradients (per R,G,B,A)
The greater the number of gradients you have available to you, the less you degrade the signal, when you mix in other sources.
Now true, 16-bit audio, is only one channel. But if you want to mix channels together you could naively do something like:
channelOutput = (c1 + c2 +
Now, you do have a point, most people won't notice any difference in 16-bit samples, and that there is decreasing returns on quality (i.e. 64-bit audio samples sound exactly the same as 32-bit audio samples.) But if you're creating/mixing audio, you want the highest quality you can afford.
Cheers
> I still use a SB16, and it's all I need.
When I swapped my ISA SB16 out for a PCI SB Live! (Platinum), a few years ago, my Quake (1) frame rate doubled! I wish I had know that before, as I would of upgraded to PCI long ago.
You might want to spend the $35 and get a SB Live! Value to see if your system performance is being held back by old ISA technology.
> Incorrect. MGS II, GTA III, and a ton of other good games are all coming out for the PS2 exclusively.
That's not true. Grand Theft Auto 3 is coming out for X-Box.
> Actually it's impossible to find an O(n) algorithm for an NP-complete problem. It's a simple matter of reductions.
I'll use sorting since it is Omega(n*log(n)).
You *do* know that you can sort in O(n) time, right?!
"Introduction to Algorithms", Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, Pg 172 "Sorting in Linear Time"
> If there is enough dark matter, with its attendant gravity, then eventually the universe will collapse back onto itself.
The "Big Crunch" was once thought possible, but that was before we discovered the universe is *expanding* and *accelerating*.
> > Of course, we will never know what came "before" or why the Universe exists in the first place.
You took my asking "And your proof is?" a bit too literal.
Knowing something is different from being able to prove something. It's entirely possible to know why the universe exists, but not be able to prove it.
> Since we need to "observe/deduce" to "know" anything we cannot "observe/deduce" is what "we will never know".
I disagree. You're forgotting about the power of logic's deduction, and more importantly induction.
> Now if you define universe differently (e.g. as the "sum" of ) this might not hold.
Yes, if you define the universe as more then just the physical.
Cheers
> Of course, we will never know what came "before" or why the Universe exists in the first place.
And your proof is?
JK> Remember that the Harry Potter series is now the most banned book series in American libraries.
Is this actually true?!?!
I haven't read the series (yet.) What's *so* bad in the books, that they must be banned?
What's the world coming too, when ideas must be repressed by a minority.
> For me the big killer is templates -- lots of failures in things like partial specialization.
Yeah, the lack of C++ conformance in MS VC is a real pita.
However, Modern C++ Design: Generic Programming and Design Patterns Applied by Andrei Alexandrescu has a clever sizeof() hack to work around this in VC6.
Modern C++ Design is the most advanced C++ book out there, and EVERY C++ programmer should have this masterpiece. The perfect blend of generic programming and object orientation programming is just beautiful. (The multiparadigm support of C++ is what makes it so powerfull.)
> Bullshit - just like your opinion that Mutilple inheritance is a good thing.
> Look, MI might be good if you're some 31337 haX0r who's code will never have to be looked at,
> but if you get paid to code(God help us) then you would realize that the clusterfuck of MI exponentially decreases the maintainability of a project.
I think you're missing the point of MI: MI should be used to inherit interfaces.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, just because you can't see the usefullness of a language feature.
> Bruce, you've played a number of "unconventional" heroes on TV and in films. Which character was the most fun to play?
Is this the same Bruce Campell that played "Autolycus: King of Thieves" in Xena?!
If so, WOOT!, that was a great character !
Anyone got a list of all the "unconventional" heroes this guy has played? After seeing his Xena performance, I'd love to check out his other work.
> We believe that without the government, prices would skyrocket (they wouldn't, supply and demand and competition prevent that),
*cough Diamond cartel cough*
Companies induce an artificially low supply to keep the demand high on overpriced rocks (At 200% to 500% markup.)
I agree with the rest of your post. People should be able to sell whatever they want.
~~~~~
If business aren't allowed to keep running bankrupt, why is the government?!?!
> I must mention "Once upon a time in China" and "New Legend of Shaolin"
;-)
Cool. Thx for the movie recommendation! I was looking to expand my Jet Li DVD section but was unsure which ones on his discography were actually worth getting.
I'm *REAL* glad a friend of mine told me, back in college, "You HAVE to check out this video of Jet Li".
I go: "Who is Jet Li??"
He replies "You've never heard of Jet Li!?!? Watch this tape!!"
It was Fist of Legend, and my jaw dropped at how good it was.
Unfortunately, me being a dumb@$$, I completely forgot the title! and could only partially remember Jet Li's name. I was estatic when I finally tracked it down on DVD this year.
Now if only I could get a review on each one of
Jet Li's other movies, so I knew which ones were ones I should pick up.
Thx again !
> Just curious as to why you think the declarations are more logical one way than the other....
:Integer;
> Is that just personal choice/comfort or a more fundamental difference?
Functionaly, there is no difference.
Personal comfort w/ respect to formatting, white space, and not needing superfluous tokens.
I like to arrange variables in a "table" format.
i.e.
intnWidth ;
intnHeight;
char*pTexels;
Now you can do the same thing in Pascal, but the C/C++ just seems more compact and unclutted:
var
nWidth
nHeight:Integer;
pTexels:^Texture;
I find this more readable too:
void foo(
intfoo
, floatfoo2
, char*foo3 )
{
}
I guess it's the same reason I like my HP calc -- RPN just seems more natural.
*shrugs*
> And just what is wrong with Pascal?
:= for assign? Just give me the dam equal sign already! :)
Not trolling or meaning to start a "holy war", as this is just a personal opinion:
- Declarations are backwards, due to the awkward grammer: name type
Compared to the more logical C/C++ way: type name
- The distinction between functions and procedures (the language sports an artifical difference.) The lack of parenthesis in the declaration make it difficult to quickly visually spot functions.
- Operators, or the lack of them (no bit shifts, scope operator, namespaces?) i.e.
- Too wordy. { } are don't clutter my code whitespace, like 'begin' 'end' do.
In short, I just hate how the language looks.
It's the same as a person liking one spoken language over another. Sure they both can explain concepts, but which one is more compact, and is "fluent" for the person?
Pascal is a great teaching language, and Delphi is very impressive (Borland has always had lightning fast compiles on their Pascal languages, due to the grammar.) But I'd rather take a language I hate less (C/C++) then one that gives me a grammer that I hate (Pascal & sons.)
I like the multiparadigm support of C++.
i.e. procedural, object orientated, and generic programming paradigms.
For me, Pascal++ is just plain wrong, but if you're productive at using it, hey, more power to you!
Cheers
> Who *really* sees Jet Li / Jackie Chan / etc movies with any intention of good screen writing, a plot, or any sense of meaning?
Guess you haven't "Fist of Legend" then.
Dare I say it, one of the best martial arts of all time.
> Create a system where addresses can be "authorized-only", similar to how ICQ can work: to receive mail from someone, you must authorize them to send to you.
;-)
Good point, but bad example.
i.e. I have a version of ICQ (98a) that I can authorize anyone, even though they didn't give their authorization.
The real way to solve the unsolicited email problem, is to use something like PGP. i.e. Authenticate the sender before recieving something from them.
> I never see mention of the Social Security system as a form of national ID. Why is that?
Because there is NO law that requires a person to have one.
> The renaissance, the richest period of exploration and innovation in human history happened
> when the controls imposed by the Catholic church started to break down and both religous and scientific information began to flow freely.
The next renaissance will be when the mass population realizes and accepts that intellectual property rights are neither. (Another interesting read is Intellectual Monopoly Laws versus True Property Rights) The scientific and mathematical community learnt this years ago. They publish formulas, constants, and theories in the name of progress.
Does that mean I'm against copyright? No. But I shouldn't need copyright to tell me that I should respect the author's distribution plans.
i.e.
An audio CD contains JUST numbers. It's illegal to share numbers now?? That doesn't make much sense. What's next, patenting numbers? Oh wait, I forgot that already happened.
The artists convert their time and expressions into a message that can be cheaply (and efficiently) be copied. The problem is how can we make it convient (and cheap) for the majority* of people to pay and reimburse the artists. DRM does nothing to solve that problem.
The other root issue is, when I "purchase" a song, am I given the right to make "unlimited backups" ? Do we need laws to dictate what number is morally and ethically alright?
* There will always be people who want everything for free. But I believe the majority of people are willing to pay for a tangible product, as long as the price is right.
Ah sweet. Thx for the link!
I'll have a look tonite and see what differences the book has from the online version.
"The BeOS Bible" by Scott Hacker has a 3 page blurb on why Mac and Windows buggered up file extensions. (Mac assumes that the viewer of a file is the same as its creator. Windows has the problem that if you rename the file, double-clicking on the file no longer brings up the proper app. Window's "Open With" is a hack, but a workable one.)
Be's solution was to use the mime class/type. Even executables use this! i.e. If there is no app to handle image/jpeg it looks for apps that can handle image/*
I can quote more from the book if people are interested.