> Honestly, he can bias the entire teenage-20 male world against evil microsoft at the drop of a hat
Have you ever used OpenGL, or even programmed? Microsoft shoved Direct3D down our game programmers throats whether we wanted it or not, when a BETTER 3d rendering API was available.
> I always though the neto-o polygon graphics were worse than the bit maps. For looks yes. BITMAPS will continue to look FAR better then poly models for some time.
> Polygons may work fine for angular things like robots but when your trying to do curvies like humans they still come out jaggy. This is EXACTLY the one big problem with polys. Curved surfaces have to be appoximated, which means more polys need to look decent, which lowers the frame rate.
> The next big push in gaming is overcoming the jaggy problem. The "technical" names are "poly count" and "triangle throughput." (Low poly modelling is an ART.) With cards like the GeForce being able to draw 15 million texture tris / second, we are slowly getting there. But 3D games won't look as good as 2D games until the graphic cards can push 100 million texture triangles per second.
Look at Baldur's Gate to see just how beautifull 2d looks:)
> Why is it that in most other disciplines the process of creating something is regulated in detail, while coders always just seem to hack their way through till it works? Because _WE_ let the PHB dictate the schedule(s) instead of US who will be DESIGNING and IMPLEMENTATING the darn thing, whatever that may be, whether database apps, games, etc.
> We need a change of attitude. Yes, it starts with _US_.
At my last job, when my boss said we need feature (x,y,z) in X weeks, I said I can't do that: it will take Y weeks. (I padded in design and redesign time and boy was I ever glad I did, since the system needed to be exteded in ways I couldn't even dream about.)
Part of the problem is that we programmers don't give an realistic implementation schedule. Now granted this is one of the things I find hardest about "professional" programming, but we owe it to our bosses and to ourselves to be honest with the length of time it will REALISTICALLY take !
Analogy: You're getting a new house built and you ask the builders "How long before my new house is ready?" They say 2 weeks, and don't have any blueprints! Its obvious what kind of nightmare the project will be, so WHY do we ignore all the signes in "real world" of Software Engineering?!
Stand up for yourself and give an accountable schedule.
.. the 1983 Sir Tech game "Rescue Raiders" was an awesome helicopter flying game (side profile view like choplifter, but you could pick up men, drop them behind the enemy line, send out tanks!, jeeps with an anti-helicopter missile, demolition van, bazooka men, etc. )
Some of my favorite Apple ][ Games: Rescue Raiders, Karateka, Captain Goodnite, Lode Runner, Aquatron, Conan, Montezuma's Revenge, Wings of Fury, and Goonies.
> For years I've been hoping that Ultima 7 (and Serpent Isle) would be open sourced
You're not the only one. Unfortunately EA now owns the copyright, and they will NEVER release the source for their old games. When I first released U7Shapes I got a job offer from Origin, ironically the same day I had an interview with EA Canada. After working for EAC for a bit (Need For Speed PSX), I emailed Lord British asking if it would be possible release the source to keep the game alive for its fans. He replied, but said Origin wasn't able to since they didn't know where the source was.;-(
Here's 2 links for the Ultima 7 hackers out there...
P.S. I've run the Disassembler on U7.EXE, but I still can't locate the "flat real mode" techique that it uses. e.g. switching to flat real mode. (I know it uses the +EBX offset in flat real mode, to access up to 4 gigs from real mode, but where does it check for if EMM is already running? )
> because I want to hear the arguments why OSS leads to less redundant/more efficient software development
OSS _can_ produce less redundant/more efficient software, WHEN the program has hit critical mass. e.g. Linux, BSD, GIMP, etc. UNTIL THEN, you have a ton of redundant and buggy programs.
The problem is, a lot of OSS is just plain crap. A good program has to be engineered, not hacked together. Sure you can throw something together, and have it work, but God help the poor soul who has to extend the functionality of a hacked together system.
How many OSS programs use design patterns? A consistent variable naming convention? And all the other good coding practises?
Where OSS comes out ahead for many people is a) price b) freedom c) the ability to just fix a bug
> I'm curious, how did you get a job without telling your employer your Social security number?
I asked them to show me the law that requires a person to have a SSN. They couldn't show me one, so I never gave one. Myself, and others work freely without a SSN. Look up the famous Taco-Bell case.
> How did you get a drivers' license? First off you DON'T need a driver's license to travel. Search for "Right to Travel" on Alta Vista for more info. Here's one link to get you started: http://www.ptialaska.net/~s wampy/interest/travel_2.html
I use an International Driver's Permit to prevent police harassment.
Thirdly, you DO NOT own your automobile UNLESS you have the "Manufactor's Statement of Origin."
I travel all the time without my car being registered by the government, without a driver's license, and have never been given a ticket "for driving without a license"
> How did you get your credit cards? I work for an offshore company which provided a company credit card.
> How do you pay your phone bill? Like everyone else does. Personally I use cash. They asked for a SSN too, and I refused to give them one.
It CAN be done. DO NOT volunteer information. It is your right to refuse giving out personal information.
> Ah, the same arguments for my Trackball! Go figure:)
> I find the trackball to be far more accurate after a little practice. Hmmm. Took me about a day back in the "Doom" days to pickup the mouse skills. How long did it take with the trackball ?
Which model are you using ?
I've been thinking about picking up the trackball, but have held off since the keyboard+mouse combo worked so well.
> Given our current environmental track record, there is still a very real chance that we won't get our shit together - that we'll turn the earth into a radioactive parking lot and be forced to live somewhere else.
But we probably wouldn't treat that new place ANY different or better !
You don't have to worry about colonizing other planets. We will of nuked ourselves to oblvion long before that.
> That is, Science says "as I cannot test the existance or non-existance of God, I have nothing to say about God." This is not atheism. This is ducking the question, as any good scientist, wearing a science hat, must do.
Nicely put.
I tend to thing of Science explaining HOW the universe works/exists, and religion explaing WHY the universe exists/works.;-)
> OpenGL seems to me to be an exceedingly well-thought-out, clean, and consistent API. It is. Check out the blue book for more goodies on the orthogonality of OpenGL.
> What is wrong with GL? Not a hell of a lot.
- The only real drawback of GL is that software rendering speeds, are, shall we saying "quite lacking". It was meant for 3d hardware.
- OpenGL drivers usually aren't as optimized as DirectX due to limited time and money.
- Some people will complain that the OpenGL doesn't support every new feature in a consistent way, but the OpenGL extension is a much better way to do things. ANY vendor can add their own extensions. After implementations settle down, it may become part of the standard. Look at how long it took M$ to get rid of the Execute Buffer garbage in Direct3D 2/3.
-- "If I protest an illegal tax, does that make me an illegal tax protester ?;-)
I use the command line too. Actually 4Dos & 4NT. www.jpsoft.com
I created this handy alias for when I need to use the explorer shell:
alias explore=`explorer/e,.`
The/E is the command to have the left pane show the directory tree, and the,. has the current directory selected. The single quotes are the back quotes.
Windows-E is also another handy keyboard shortcut.
> why does anyone still try and use a mouse for quake?
a) 1 word: Logitech b) 2 words: sensitivity 40 c) 3 words: 4 button mouse (It took a week for it to dawn upon me that the mouse-wheel was actually a button. Doh !)
> don't you know thats what trackballs are for. much better controll no 'lifting and moving the mouse' I've been play Quake since 1996 and have never had to "lift and move the mouse" due to the above.
... has a great article on cheating in games. It lists the most common ways someone will hack the game to cheat, and also gives (obvious) rules of thumb. e.g. Security through obsecurity doesn't work, etc.
Why do most of us game developers treat problems and solutions on game cheating as taboo ? The cheaters are ALLREADY smart enough to hack the game - openly discussing on how to make a game more secure isn't going to give them any more insights !
> That said, what you need to do in any sort of open-source project with a multiplayer function is to develop a system where you trust nobody. When it gets right down to it, you still need to trust someone. e.g. If there isn't an authoritative server, then you game is going to get out sync faster then we can say "inserted packet";-)
> You CAN have secure open-source projects; this is clearly proved by Linux itself. Very nice point.
Congrats to Lionhead for talking about open-sourcing their game. I _really_ wish games older then 5 years would be open-sourced: It would keep the fanbase around longer !
Slashdot Mirror
> Honestly, he can bias the entire teenage-20 male world against evil microsoft at the drop of a hat
Have you ever used OpenGL, or even programmed?
Microsoft shoved Direct3D down our game programmers throats whether we wanted it or not, when a BETTER 3d rendering API was available.
> I always though the neto-o polygon graphics were worse than the bit maps.
:)
For looks yes. BITMAPS will continue to look FAR better then poly models for some time.
> Polygons may work fine for angular things like robots but when your trying to do curvies like humans they still come out jaggy.
This is EXACTLY the one big problem with polys. Curved surfaces have to be appoximated, which means more polys need to look decent, which lowers the frame rate.
> The next big push in gaming is overcoming the jaggy problem.
The "technical" names are "poly count" and "triangle throughput." (Low poly modelling is an ART.) With cards like the GeForce being able to draw 15 million texture tris / second, we are slowly getting there. But 3D games won't look as good as 2D games until the graphic cards can push 100 million texture triangles per second.
Look at Baldur's Gate to see just how beautifull 2d looks
someone mod this up as funny.
> Why is it that in most other disciplines the process of creating something is regulated in detail, while coders always just seem to hack their way through till it works?
Because _WE_ let the PHB dictate the schedule(s) instead of US who will be DESIGNING and IMPLEMENTATING the darn thing, whatever that may be, whether database apps, games, etc.
> We need a change of attitude.
Yes, it starts with _US_.
At my last job, when my boss said we need feature (x,y,z) in X weeks, I said I can't do that: it will take Y weeks. (I padded in design and redesign time and boy was I ever glad I did, since the system needed to be exteded in ways I couldn't even dream about.)
Part of the problem is that we programmers don't give an realistic implementation schedule. Now granted this is one of the things I find hardest about "professional" programming, but we owe it to our bosses and to ourselves to be honest with the length of time it will REALISTICALLY take !
Analogy: You're getting a new house built and you ask the builders "How long before my new house is ready?" They say 2 weeks, and don't have any blueprints! Its obvious what kind of nightmare the project will be, so WHY do we ignore all the signes in "real world" of Software Engineering?!
Stand up for yourself and give an accountable schedule.
Cheers
> Redefined hip-hop TWICE
... someone should mod the parent up as informative.
Wow !
Thx for the info
> try a game from a different genre for once, you might be positively surprised
;-)
You mean, like Majesty a nice blend of RTS+RPG
> I, for one, will delete all games off of my computer the moment I hear that Daikatana sells even half as many copies as Thief II has
1/2 would be only 40,000 copies.
The other reason LGS went belly up was due to "top heavy management"
And the high paying Boston wages certainly didn't help either.
.. the 1983 Sir Tech game "Rescue Raiders" was an awesome helicopter flying game (side profile view like choplifter, but you could pick up men, drop them behind the enemy line, send out tanks!, jeeps with an anti-helicopter missile, demolition van, bazooka men, etc. )
Check out the link here for a screen shot
http://www.multimania.c om/apple2c/archive/Action/Action.htm
Some of my favorite Apple ][ Games: Rescue Raiders, Karateka, Captain Goodnite, Lode Runner, Aquatron, Conan, Montezuma's Revenge, Wings of Fury, and Goonies.
> For years I've been hoping that Ultima 7 (and Serpent Isle) would be open sourced
;-(
...
You're not the only one. Unfortunately EA now owns the copyright, and they will NEVER release the source for their old games. When I first released U7Shapes I got a job offer from Origin, ironically the same day I had an interview with EA Canada. After working for EAC for a bit (Need For Speed PSX), I emailed Lord British asking if it would be possible release the source to keep the game alive for its fans. He replied, but said Origin wasn't able to since they didn't know where the source was.
Here's 2 links for the Ultima 7 hackers out there
http://www.geocities.com/hous tondragon/utility7bg.htm
http://www.chez.com/pulsar rtc/wizard/ultima/u7wizard.htm
P.S.
I've run the Disassembler on U7.EXE, but I still can't locate the "flat real mode" techique that it uses. e.g. switching to flat real mode. (I know it uses the +EBX offset in flat real mode, to access up to 4 gigs from real mode, but where does it check for if EMM is already running? )
> Is it possible that OO programming is not the be all end all of programming?
Yes, OOP is NOT the end-all be-all of programming.
Read this book:
Multi-Paradigm Design for C++
> because I want to hear the arguments why OSS leads to less redundant/more efficient software development
OSS _can_ produce less redundant/more efficient software, WHEN the program has hit critical mass. e.g. Linux, BSD, GIMP, etc.
UNTIL THEN, you have a ton of redundant and buggy programs.
The problem is, a lot of OSS is just plain crap. A good program has to be engineered, not hacked together. Sure you can throw something together, and have it work, but God help the poor soul who has to extend the functionality of a hacked together system.
How many OSS programs use design patterns? A consistent variable naming convention? And all the other good coding practises?
Where OSS comes out ahead for many people is
a) price
b) freedom
c) the ability to just fix a bug
Comments?
> I'm curious, how did you get a job without telling your employer your Social security number?
I asked them to show me the law that requires a person to have a SSN. They couldn't show me one, so I never gave one.
Myself, and others work freely without a SSN. Look up the famous Taco-Bell case.
> How did you get a drivers' license?
First off you DON'T need a driver's license to travel. Search for "Right to Travel" on Alta Vista for more info.
Here's one link to get you started:
http://www.ptialaska.net/~s wampy/interest/travel_2.html
I use an International Driver's Permit to prevent police harassment.
Thirdly, you DO NOT own your automobile UNLESS you have the "Manufactor's Statement of Origin."
I travel all the time without my car being registered by the government, without a driver's license, and have never been given a ticket "for driving without a license"
> How did you get your credit cards?
I work for an offshore company which provided a company credit card.
> How do you pay your phone bill?
Like everyone else does. Personally I use cash.
They asked for a SSN too, and I refused to give them one.
It CAN be done. DO NOT volunteer information. It is your right to refuse giving out personal information.
Cheers
> Just look at all the companies that have either gone under, left the graphics ring, or were bought out...
> NeoMagic
The laptop video chipset ? What happened to them?!
> Ah, the same arguments for my Trackball! :)
Go figure
> I find the trackball to be far more accurate after a little practice.
Hmmm. Took me about a day back in the "Doom" days to pickup the mouse skills. How long did it take with the trackball ?
Which model are you using ?
I've been thinking about picking up the trackball, but have held off since the keyboard+mouse combo worked so well.
Cheers
> Given our current environmental track record, there is still a very real chance that we won't get our shit together - that we'll turn the earth into a radioactive parking lot and be forced to live somewhere else.
But we probably wouldn't treat that new place ANY different or better !
You don't have to worry about colonizing other planets. We will of nuked ourselves to oblvion long before that.
> If you are not careful, you will find yourself back in a niche market until DirectX can overtake you there too.
Yeah right. OpenGL runs on every other major "desktop" ranging from low-end PC's Windows/Linux/Be, etc to high-end SGI's. How is that a niche market ?
> . What I am referring to is: (1/2+1/4+1/8+1/16+...) ad inifinitum actually adds up to 2, and not infinity.
Uhm, hello, do the math:
E{ i=1, i=inf, 1 / (2^i) }
Dec = Binary
0
+1/2 = 0z0.10000000...
+1/4 = 0z0.01000000...
+1/8 = 0z0.00100000...
+1/16= 0z0.00010000...
=====================
= 0z0.11111111 = decimal 1
The 2 you are thinking of is this series:
E{ i=0, i=inf, 1/(2^i) }
> That is, Science says "as I cannot test the existance or non-existance of God, I have nothing to say about God." This is not atheism. This is ducking the question, as any good scientist, wearing a science hat, must do.
;-)
Nicely put.
I tend to thing of Science explaining HOW the universe works/exists, and religion explaing WHY the universe exists/works.
> Science, when practiced in good faith, however, is immune from such arguments ...
Did anyone else catch the irony in this> I have never understood why no one has developed a game OS.
... ;-)
It's called Winblows 9X. The darn thing isn't stable enough for anything else
> OpenGL seems to me to be an exceedingly well-thought-out, clean, and consistent API.
;-)
It is. Check out the blue book for more goodies on the orthogonality of OpenGL.
> What is wrong with GL?
Not a hell of a lot.
- The only real drawback of GL is that software rendering speeds, are, shall we saying "quite lacking". It was meant for 3d hardware.
- OpenGL drivers usually aren't as optimized as DirectX due to limited time and money.
- Some people will complain that the OpenGL doesn't support every new feature in a consistent way, but the OpenGL extension is a much better way to do things. ANY vendor can add their own extensions. After implementations settle down, it may become part of the standard. Look at how long it took M$ to get rid of the Execute Buffer garbage in Direct3D 2/3.
--
"If I protest an illegal tax, does that make me an illegal tax protester ?
> I was an avid Quaker (CTF) that stopped playing when cheating became more common than not
:) I still play Mega TF. I quit CTF because of that stupid grapple-person-2-death bug.
Hey, some of us never stopped
Thunderwalker was a cool mod too.
I use the command line too. Actually 4Dos & 4NT. www.jpsoft.com
/e,.`
/E is the command to have the left pane show the directory tree, and the ,. has the current directory selected. The single quotes are the back quotes.
I created this handy alias for when I need to use the explorer shell:
alias explore=`explorer
The
Windows-E is also another handy keyboard shortcut.
> why does anyone still try and use a mouse for quake?
a) 1 word: Logitech
b) 2 words: sensitivity 40
c) 3 words: 4 button mouse (It took a week for it to dawn upon me that the mouse-wheel was actually a button. Doh !)
> don't you know thats what trackballs are for. much better controll no 'lifting and moving the mouse'
I've been play Quake since 1996 and have never had to "lift and move the mouse" due to the above.
Cheers
... has a great article on cheating in games.
;-)
It lists the most common ways someone will hack the game to cheat, and also gives (obvious) rules of thumb. e.g. Security through obsecurity doesn't work, etc.
Why do most of us game developers treat problems and solutions on game cheating as taboo ? The cheaters are ALLREADY smart enough to hack the game - openly discussing on how to make a game more secure isn't going to give them any more insights !
> That said, what you need to do in any sort of open-source project with a multiplayer function is to develop a system where you trust nobody.
When it gets right down to it, you still need to trust someone. e.g. If there isn't an authoritative server, then you game is going to get out sync faster then we can say "inserted packet"
> You CAN have secure open-source projects; this is clearly proved by Linux itself.
Very nice point.
Congrats to Lionhead for talking about open-sourcing their game. I _really_ wish games older then 5 years would be open-sourced: It would keep the fanbase around longer !