There are audiophiles, and then there are people who really can hear the difference. I'm talking about people who do extensive ABX blind testing, never accept information or opinions not backed up with scientifically-acquired evidence, and who, in general, really know their stuff when it comes to audio compression (being ones who are actually coding these encoders).
I mean, seriously, I'd call these guys audiophiles, but the word has already been defiled.
The software renderer, which you can download and try (it also works for UT2003) and read about here, is really built more for people who buy computers with integrated (i.e. crappy) 3D graphics from the big manufacturers and still want a taste of the game. Framerate and graphics quality-wise, it really is just a taste--on my P4 2.4 GHz, I don't get more than 20-30 fps at 640x480 (actually rendered at 320x240 and scaled up, except the HUD). There's just too many polygons for a CPU to handle all by itself.
Still, it's a nice move on Epic's part to make the game accessible to more people.
I suppose by this you should also clarify that the first Matrix used this too, for the backgrounds for those bullet time scenes. The Matrix Reloaded is more like those same techniques refined (clearly, the backgrounds are way more complex now).
Anyone who listened to George Borshukov's talk about virtual cinematography and the Matrix Reloaded at SIGGRAPH 2003 knows how much work went into modeling the characters for all the virtual cinematography scenes. Referring to the first Matrix's bullet time techniques as being "the same" as what's going on here makes no sense, since they're two totally different means of achieving that type of camera style.
Given the stills that were shown during that SIGGRAPH presentation, which, incidentally, had side-by-side comparisons of the real and virtual actors shot under controlled lighting conditions, there's basically one thing that gives the digital doubles away--somehow, I doubt people were checking the shape of the back of Agent Smith's head during the Burly Brawl.
I guess now I chalk a lot of this up to inability to completely suspend belief when I'm watching scenes that I know are physically impossible to shoot.
Also, some of those Burly Brawl shots are just head replacements, so look for those Agent Smiths that don't quite have the right face and then come back and tell me that all those CG bodies look fake.
Statistics for Unreal Tournament have always tracked something called efficiency, which IIRC is calculated as (frags - suicides) / (frags + deaths), and there's always the announcements when you get a number of kills without being taken out yourself. I guess I don't know about other people, but it's usually the person who can pull off a Wicked Sick or something that impresses me more.
I feel as if my family placed too much value on name recognition on rankings like these and just in general. I still remember throwing out so many letters and envelopes from colleges just because my parents and I didn't recognize them from the tops of these lists.
In the end, who knows? I may have wasted time writing essays to apply to schools that wouldn't have made sense for me to attend, just because of their position on rankings, even those not relevant to my area of study.
Harvey Mudd's letter to me went into the recycle bin because my parents hadn't heard of it, but I certainly remembered it when my friend was talking about visiting for Nova Scholarship stuff. I do wonder about what might have been (maybe if I had spent more time thinking about my MIT application or something), but I suppose I have luck to thank that my parents recognize UC Berkeley's name:-)
MP3 encoding (with blocks of samples) makes it difficult, if not impossible, to encode tracks to separate MP3s and not have gaps in between. Granted, some gaps are bigger than others depending on the player, but you'll have to look to other formats if you want truly gapless playback.
Actually, to put it more concisely, I still remember where the real world ends and the TV screen begins. I think a telefrag in real life would gross me out, regardless of how funny it is in a game.
Well, being the kind of person who enjoys violent video games but who isn't keen on violent movies (and I'm still not sure exactly why that's the case), I guess that makes me...pretty confused. So I suppose I have the right to wonder.
No, I'm not talking about the morality of Rockstar doing this, I'm pondering how the consumer is supposed to deal with it. It is just a game, but should I feel dirty buying a game that's been repackaged to escape a contract?
I remember this one time that I was at a Benihana and the people next to us at the table(businessmen, it looked like) were talking about how they just discovered Kazaa. From what I could gather, for finding the kinds of music they were looking for, it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. But even they knew that their files would be shared back out. So the one guy that was recommending it to the other was telling him to make sure he closed Kazaa after he finished getting the files he wanted, so people wouldn't download from him.
Now, you can have your files shared, but if you're only on for enough time to get what you want, it doesn't really matter how much you're sharing. I imagine these guys weren't thinking about just where the files that they downloaded were coming from.
By the same logic, is it ok (retrospectively) for Nvidia to have used the name Geforce4 MX? Same idea applies here--namely, "G5" ought to mean something in terms of architecture and performance.
For those of us who game on Macs or have friends who game on Macs, is there even a choice at all? My friend tried Roger Wilco, but considering that Roger Wilco hasn't been updated since before Apple introduced OS X, and Teamspeak seems to be some ways away from an OS X client, am I missing any important alternatives?
I suppose if there's one alternative, it becomes the best by default.
(Yes, I know, Macs are a rather expensive way to game, but I'm not actually the one doing it, just asking on behalf of my housemates.)
Given that Quake 3 is more of a CPU-bound test at the resolution Apple was using on its benchmarks, I'd say it was a shame that they put them on the page they did. Although they only compared scores to the single-processor P4, it's still a pretty impressive feat for a company which still precedes a Q3 benchmark of 76 fps (however they obtained that number, and yes, I know, that's a PowerBook benchmark) with the word "scorching."
So, why aren't these numbers counted in the "real-world" performance category when SPEC benchmarks are?
Slashdot Mirror
There are audiophiles, and then there are people who really can hear the difference. I'm talking about people who do extensive ABX blind testing, never accept information or opinions not backed up with scientifically-acquired evidence, and who, in general, really know their stuff when it comes to audio compression (being ones who are actually coding these encoders).
I mean, seriously, I'd call these guys audiophiles, but the word has already been defiled.
The software renderer, which you can download and try (it also works for UT2003) and read about here, is really built more for people who buy computers with integrated (i.e. crappy) 3D graphics from the big manufacturers and still want a taste of the game. Framerate and graphics quality-wise, it really is just a taste--on my P4 2.4 GHz, I don't get more than 20-30 fps at 640x480 (actually rendered at 320x240 and scaled up, except the HUD). There's just too many polygons for a CPU to handle all by itself.
Still, it's a nice move on Epic's part to make the game accessible to more people.
I suppose by this you should also clarify that the first Matrix used this too, for the backgrounds for those bullet time scenes. The Matrix Reloaded is more like those same techniques refined (clearly, the backgrounds are way more complex now).
Seriously, though, it's like everyone's doing it.
Anyone who listened to George Borshukov's talk about virtual cinematography and the Matrix Reloaded at SIGGRAPH 2003 knows how much work went into modeling the characters for all the virtual cinematography scenes. Referring to the first Matrix's bullet time techniques as being "the same" as what's going on here makes no sense, since they're two totally different means of achieving that type of camera style.
Given the stills that were shown during that SIGGRAPH presentation, which, incidentally, had side-by-side comparisons of the real and virtual actors shot under controlled lighting conditions, there's basically one thing that gives the digital doubles away--somehow, I doubt people were checking the shape of the back of Agent Smith's head during the Burly Brawl.
I guess now I chalk a lot of this up to inability to completely suspend belief when I'm watching scenes that I know are physically impossible to shoot.
Also, some of those Burly Brawl shots are just head replacements, so look for those Agent Smiths that don't quite have the right face and then come back and tell me that all those CG bodies look fake.
Statistics for Unreal Tournament have always tracked something called efficiency, which IIRC is calculated as (frags - suicides) / (frags + deaths), and there's always the announcements when you get a number of kills without being taken out yourself. I guess I don't know about other people, but it's usually the person who can pull off a Wicked Sick or something that impresses me more.
...and Star Wars Episodes 4-6?
"That's not true! That's impossible!"
Just a little bit of reminiscing here.
I feel as if my family placed too much value on name recognition on rankings like these and just in general. I still remember throwing out so many letters and envelopes from colleges just because my parents and I didn't recognize them from the tops of these lists.
In the end, who knows? I may have wasted time writing essays to apply to schools that wouldn't have made sense for me to attend, just because of their position on rankings, even those not relevant to my area of study.
Harvey Mudd's letter to me went into the recycle bin because my parents hadn't heard of it, but I certainly remembered it when my friend was talking about visiting for Nova Scholarship stuff. I do wonder about what might have been (maybe if I had spent more time thinking about my MIT application or something), but I suppose I have luck to thank that my parents recognize UC Berkeley's name :-)
MP3 encoding (with blocks of samples) makes it difficult, if not impossible, to encode tracks to separate MP3s and not have gaps in between. Granted, some gaps are bigger than others depending on the player, but you'll have to look to other formats if you want truly gapless playback.
Actually, to put it more concisely, I still remember where the real world ends and the TV screen begins. I think a telefrag in real life would gross me out, regardless of how funny it is in a game.
Well, being the kind of person who enjoys violent video games but who isn't keen on violent movies (and I'm still not sure exactly why that's the case), I guess that makes me...pretty confused. So I suppose I have the right to wonder.
No, I'm not talking about the morality of Rockstar doing this, I'm pondering how the consumer is supposed to deal with it. It is just a game, but should I feel dirty buying a game that's been repackaged to escape a contract?
I remember this one time that I was at a Benihana and the people next to us at the table(businessmen, it looked like) were talking about how they just discovered Kazaa. From what I could gather, for finding the kinds of music they were looking for, it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. But even they knew that their files would be shared back out. So the one guy that was recommending it to the other was telling him to make sure he closed Kazaa after he finished getting the files he wanted, so people wouldn't download from him.
Now, you can have your files shared, but if you're only on for enough time to get what you want, it doesn't really matter how much you're sharing. I imagine these guys weren't thinking about just where the files that they downloaded were coming from.
By the same logic, is it ok (retrospectively) for Nvidia to have used the name Geforce4 MX? Same idea applies here--namely, "G5" ought to mean something in terms of architecture and performance.
Let's not advocate any double standards here.
I suppose if there's one alternative, it becomes the best by default.
(Yes, I know, Macs are a rather expensive way to game, but I'm not actually the one doing it, just asking on behalf of my housemates.)
Given that Quake 3 is more of a CPU-bound test at the resolution Apple was using on its benchmarks, I'd say it was a shame that they put them on the page they did. Although they only compared scores to the single-processor P4, it's still a pretty impressive feat for a company which still precedes a Q3 benchmark of 76 fps (however they obtained that number, and yes, I know, that's a PowerBook benchmark) with the word "scorching."
So, why aren't these numbers counted in the "real-world" performance category when SPEC benchmarks are?