The graphics we see today are possible only because we can make a special purpose processor that can accelerate them very efficiently. Can the same be done for raytracing? I don't know. I mean I'm sure it is possible to an extent, especially since it is a very parallel problem, but that doesn't mean that we will be able to as efficiently accelerate it.
Raytracing does quite well on specialized hardware. A CPU that is almost exclusively SIMD units (such as the Cell) is almost perfect for the job. Some improvements can be made (the Cell's SPUs don't have enough memory or bandwidth for texturing calculations, for example).
N is the number of graphics primitives in the scene (usually triangles, but raytracing can also use more complicated primitives such as spheres, cylinders, and boxes). For triangle-based scenes, the turnover point between rasterization and raytracing is believed to be somewhere between 10,000,000 and 100,000,000 triangles. Current game levels are often in the 10,000,000 triangle range.
Nintendo has a long history of being out of touch with the standards of computer terminology. Whenever they mention the size of a game, they mention it in MegaBITS not MegaBYTES.
Hardly. They describe ROM sizes in megabits because they can use bigger numbers that way.
Because if the arstechnica objections are right, and homeopathy is only a matter of placebo effect, you'd still have to prove that this placebo effect is inferior to normal cures in terms of percentage of people cured.
That's what every Phase II drug trial ever done has tested: "Is this medicine more effective than a placebo?"
It's not the placebo effect. The claimed mechanism for homeopathic medicine is direct application of the laws of sympathetic magic: the law of similarity and the law of contagon. Both should be familiar to anyone who's read a decent amount of fantasy fiction.
Jeez, and I though I got bad gas mileage. 40 rods to the hogshead is 504 miles to the gallon, on my side of the Atlantic anyway.
How big's your gallon, rod, mile, and hogshead? Over here, 40 rods to the hogshead converts to a decidedly unfavorable fuel economy of 1186 square millimeters.
By your definition, Wikipedia has somewhere between 1,500,000 articles (discarding *all* articles about popular culture) and 1,900,000 articles (discarding just the things you consider "cruft"). The largest group of articles are biographies (30% of the encyclopedia), followed by articles on places (25%), popular culture (25%), and history (10%).
I hate the muddy lighting conditions that streetlights produce. There's not enough light to clearly see what's going on, but there's too much light for things lit by your car's headlights to stand out.
Before anyone bitches about it, this is perfectly legal. The GPL only requires you to provide source code to people who you also provide the compiled software to. You just can't restrict what they in turn do with the source code, which is why most GPL developers make the source code available to everyone and their dog.
There's a bigger problem with that though -- if you lower the pressure of the atmosphere, but add more O2 to keep the partial pressure the same, you increase the fire hazard. Inert gases like nitrogen act as a buffer and reduce flammability. Fires in spacecraft are a big deal, which (I believe) is why ISS uses higher pressure.
ISS uses higher pressure because the Space Shuttle uses higher pressure. The Space Shuttle uses higher pressure because it needs to work at both sea level and in a vacuum. You could use a variable-pressure atmosphere, but that requires working with pure oxygen, and 15PSI of pure oxygen makes for an explosively flammable environment.
For me, an "emergency" would be something like a dead battery at a remote trailhead: not worth calling 911 over, but where a 30-second commercial while calling the tow truck is preferable to a 20-mile hike out to the main road.
Not quite. It would be nonsensical to directly compare Cell's SPU to some GPU because they are so different (because they are designed for so different tasks and dataflows), but you can get a ballpark figure by comparing the amount and clockspeed of the key execution units, in particular the FMAC units:
One SPU has four 32-bit FMACs at 3200 MHz. The pixel shader core of Cell's RSX alone has 240 32-bit FMACs at 550 MHz. (24 main pixel pipelines, each with two 4x32-bit vector and two 1x32-bit scalar units.)
I'll admit that the Cell's SPUs aren't as fast as the PS3's GPU, but the important question is how it stacks up to the GPUs in the XBox, Gamecube, and PS2. I'm fairly sure it's enough faster to emulate any of them.
For the recent generations of consoles, this is because the emulator programmers are using OpenGL or DirectX to emulate the console's GPU. Since OpenGL, DirectX, and console GPUs have different capabilities, and none of them is very flexible, there's a resulting loss of accuracy -- but since no other part of a desktop computer is fast enough to do the job, they do it anyway.
The PS3, on the other hand, has a half-dozen SPUs. These are every bit as fast as a GPU, but far more programmable.
I've bought a bunch of accessories that'll be installed tomorrow, what stuff do you recommend? I use my bike for trips for groceries mainly and I walk to work daily.
I'd recommend a rear fender/mudguard, a tiedown rack for the back, and a wire basket in the front.
It's well-established that, if you only consider relativistic effects, a black hole will never form. What this paper does is demonstrate that if you take quantum effects into account, it's still true.
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Raytracing does quite well on specialized hardware. A CPU that is almost exclusively SIMD units (such as the Cell) is almost perfect for the job. Some improvements can be made (the Cell's SPUs don't have enough memory or bandwidth for texturing calculations, for example).
N is the number of graphics primitives in the scene (usually triangles, but raytracing can also use more complicated primitives such as spheres, cylinders, and boxes). For triangle-based scenes, the turnover point between rasterization and raytracing is believed to be somewhere between 10,000,000 and 100,000,000 triangles. Current game levels are often in the 10,000,000 triangle range.
Hardly. They describe ROM sizes in megabits because they can use bigger numbers that way.
That's what every Phase II drug trial ever done has tested: "Is this medicine more effective than a placebo?"
It's not the placebo effect. The claimed mechanism for homeopathic medicine is direct application of the laws of sympathetic magic: the law of similarity and the law of contagon. Both should be familiar to anyone who's read a decent amount of fantasy fiction.
How big's your gallon, rod, mile, and hogshead? Over here, 40 rods to the hogshead converts to a decidedly unfavorable fuel economy of 1186 square millimeters.
Those people have to accept the license the first time they boot the computer: it's part of the OEM startup routine.
And this is why I've never agreed to the EULA when installing any recent Microsoft OS on my home computer.
By your definition, Wikipedia has somewhere between 1,500,000 articles (discarding *all* articles about popular culture) and 1,900,000 articles (discarding just the things you consider "cruft"). The largest group of articles are biographies (30% of the encyclopedia), followed by articles on places (25%), popular culture (25%), and history (10%).
I hate the muddy lighting conditions that streetlights produce. There's not enough light to clearly see what's going on, but there's too much light for things lit by your car's headlights to stand out.
Since BitLocker requires a computer with a TPM chip, I'm not surprised nobody noticed this.
Since it's a private server, the logs get rotated into /dev/null on a daily basis.
Quite possibly. Most of the editions circulating these days are toned down from the original.
Probably also sanitized. How many sex scenes did it contain?
I use localhost, which means my private webserver returns a 404 right quick.
Before anyone bitches about it, this is perfectly legal. The GPL only requires you to provide source code to people who you also provide the compiled software to. You just can't restrict what they in turn do with the source code, which is why most GPL developers make the source code available to everyone and their dog.
ISS uses higher pressure because the Space Shuttle uses higher pressure. The Space Shuttle uses higher pressure because it needs to work at both sea level and in a vacuum. You could use a variable-pressure atmosphere, but that requires working with pure oxygen, and 15PSI of pure oxygen makes for an explosively flammable environment.
For me, an "emergency" would be something like a dead battery at a remote trailhead: not worth calling 911 over, but where a 30-second commercial while calling the tow truck is preferable to a 20-mile hike out to the main road.
Spore's got an advantage over DNF: it doesn't require kick-ass graphics. If the pretty pictures look a year or three out of date, it's no big deal.
No real impact? He's the best publicity that certain publishers could hope for!
I'll admit that the Cell's SPUs aren't as fast as the PS3's GPU, but the important question is how it stacks up to the GPUs in the XBox, Gamecube, and PS2. I'm fairly sure it's enough faster to emulate any of them.
For the recent generations of consoles, this is because the emulator programmers are using OpenGL or DirectX to emulate the console's GPU. Since OpenGL, DirectX, and console GPUs have different capabilities, and none of them is very flexible, there's a resulting loss of accuracy -- but since no other part of a desktop computer is fast enough to do the job, they do it anyway.
The PS3, on the other hand, has a half-dozen SPUs. These are every bit as fast as a GPU, but far more programmable.
Best games of all time? E.T. and Custer's Revenge, of course!
I'd recommend a rear fender/mudguard, a tiedown rack for the back, and a wire basket in the front.
I can block your attack by turning off Javascript. There's nothing I can do in the typical browser to block a GET-based attack.
It's well-established that, if you only consider relativistic effects, a black hole will never form. What this paper does is demonstrate that if you take quantum effects into account, it's still true.