That being said, the performance difference between a $150 and $500 CPU is much smaller than the performance difference between a $150 and $500 video card.
A $500 Athlon64 3700+ is only ~25% more powerful than a $150 Athlon 3000+.
A $500 video Radeon X800 XT can be more than 200% more powerful than a $200 GeForce 6600GT (if the cpu is fast enough)
A fast video card won't compensate for a weak CPU though. And the 200% will only be noticed at 1600*1200 with all the graphics options at max.
The Doom 3 engine is very specialized. It makes no compromise when it comes to accurate and sharp lighting and shadows (all lighting must be realtime: the engine doesn't support light maps) Almost every surface in the game is Bump/Normal mapped. But in being so specialized, the engine has to compromise in other areas... There are no soft shadows or shadowless fill lights. No large and complex outdoor areas.
In the future all games will use exclusively real time lighting and shadowing. The Doom 3 engine was able to do this now by compromising other engine abilities.
I like that in Doom 3 and the Unreal engine, there is a single map file for both the editor and the game. This lets all of the level design and scripting to be "open source".
You can emulate the feel of an iPod emulating Quicktime by dragging the slider in Quicktime to watch the Quicktime video of the iPod emulating Quicktime.
A pixel in a bump map represents the elevation of that pixel.
A pixel in a normal map represents the angle/direction (normal) that the surface at that point should appear to be facing. When the lighting is applied, it is calculated using that normal, relative to the actual orientation of the underlying polygon.
The problem with normal mapping is the lack of parallax.
The original Metroid had really long repetitive hallways and no guide on which way to go, forcing you to go through the same areas several times. It also had no auto map. I've never liked it.
What I really liked about Metroid Prime is that every room in the game is unique. And the environments are great... tree roots forming cracks in ruins and running along the walls... stuff like that. It also gives you objectives. When you aquire a new item in MP, it gives you new abilities. That is much more fun than a switch.
I played a couple of hours of Halo single-player, and I found the environments to be quite drab. And from what I've heard, they are repetitive too (something about a library level?).
I'd rather have a smaller game with a great environment (great artistically, not just technically), then have a larger game with uninspiring locales.
How about a keyboard with some pressure sensitive WASD keys? That is one thing console controllers are better at... you can adjust your character's speed with an analog control. A mouse is better for view control, of course.
The curious thing is why (s)he made everything look like the whole shebang was 13,000,000,000 years old
If you cut down a tree in the Garden of Eden the day it was made, would it have rings in it?
Even if you (grandparent) believe in a six day creation, things were still created with an appearance of age.... If the animals and Adam were created as fully developed adults, why not the whole universe?
I actually have a TV, DVD, VCR combo. It is very easy to use... just put in the tape or DVD and press play. No wires or modes to deal with. If one of the players goes bad, an external player can still be connected.
The automatic PC gaming machine thing will fail though:-)
and don't require you to own hardware that only came out just last week to run them.
You make the assumption that you have to buy the games the day they come out.
The major FPS games (unreal,quake/doom, halflife) have several years between iterations. Just buy the game a year or two late, and the game costs less money, and so does the hardware. I think some games should be near the bleeding edge of hardare requirements when released... they'll be around for a while.
Patience also works with consoles. You can get a Gamecube for $99 with a free game, and most of the best games for it are now $20-30.
Slashdot Mirror
The PSP is slightly smaller in volume and weight.
I'm guessing at $199 for a 2 GB version. Apple is probably able to get 2GB of flash memory for less than $100.
The iPod mini was more expensive and bigger(more storage) than people though it would be.
That being said, the performance difference between a $150 and $500 CPU is much smaller than the performance difference between a $150 and $500 video card.
A $500 Athlon64 3700+ is only ~25% more powerful than a $150 Athlon 3000+.
A $500 video Radeon X800 XT can be more than 200% more powerful than a $200 GeForce 6600GT (if the cpu is fast enough)
A fast video card won't compensate for a weak CPU though. And the 200% will only be noticed at 1600*1200 with all the graphics options at max.
I'd say that a high end CPU is more important in some ways.
A CPU will be almost equally strained by any of a game's graphical settings.
If your video card isn't fast enough, you can always lower the graphics quality to get better performance.
I'm thinking of getting an Athlon 64 3000+ and a geForce 6600gt. AMD CPUs are generally better for games.
animesuki.com is a much better site for finding torrents of unlicensed anime fansubs.
The Doom 3 engine is very specialized. It makes no compromise when it comes to accurate and sharp lighting and shadows (all lighting must be realtime: the engine doesn't support light maps) Almost every surface in the game is Bump/Normal mapped. But in being so specialized, the engine has to compromise in other areas... There are no soft shadows or shadowless fill lights. No large and complex outdoor areas.
In the future all games will use exclusively real time lighting and shadowing. The Doom 3 engine was able to do this now by compromising other engine abilities.
I like that in Doom 3 and the Unreal engine, there is a single map file for both the editor and the game. This lets all of the level design and scripting to be "open source".
Yeah... it's a free mod. But, I was able to get the Opposing Force expansion pack for free from Steam.
You can emulate the feel of an iPod emulating Quicktime by dragging the slider in Quicktime to watch the Quicktime video of the iPod emulating Quicktime.
Washington, DC is so liberal that it turned to a pale shade of green!
It's also way overpriced at $500 for the 1GB version. You can get a 1GB flash drive that is the size of a couple of pennies for only $78.
2.5 times the price for 1.75 times the speed is a quite good ratio for a very high end upgrade.
An athlon 4000+ costs almost 3 times as much as a 3400+ with a less than 20% increase in speed. (and a dual cpu upgrade won't help in any game)
One pretty cool thing about The Beast is that it can't be seen from the rest of the park... it goes into the forest outside of the main park.
Here is a good top view of the ride: http://terraserver.microsoft.com/addressimage.aspx ?t=1&s=10&lon=-84.2628044891808&lat=39.33765782808 34&alon=-84.24930424&alat=39.3558437&w=2&ref=A%7C4 5034
A Sandisk 1GB CF card is $71 at newegg.com
I bought a 2GB card from Newegg for $136 last week (up to $144 now)
The massive price drop occurred earlier this month.
Your idea sounds great! Tax Nader voters the way they want to be taxed, and use that money to provide social services for Nader voters.
Do the same for Bush and Kerry voters.
A pixel in a bump map represents the elevation of that pixel.
A pixel in a normal map represents the angle/direction (normal) that the surface at that point should appear to be facing. When the lighting is applied, it is calculated using that normal, relative to the actual orientation of the underlying polygon.
The problem with normal mapping is the lack of parallax.
Yeah, but why does that matter? Linux users are used to installations involving somewhat vague instructions.
I have Lemmings on my Sega Game Gear.
120 levels of fun and frustration. That game has gotten a lot of use, even as recently as last year.
I'd love to see it come to the NintendoDS. The touch screen would be great for it.
The original Metroid had really long repetitive hallways and no guide on which way to go, forcing you to go through the same areas several times. It also had no auto map. I've never liked it.
What I really liked about Metroid Prime is that every room in the game is unique. And the environments are great... tree roots forming cracks in ruins and running along the walls... stuff like that. It also gives you objectives. When you aquire a new item in MP, it gives you new abilities. That is much more fun than a switch.
I played a couple of hours of Halo single-player, and I found the environments to be quite drab. And from what I've heard, they are repetitive too (something about a library level?).
I'd rather have a smaller game with a great environment (great artistically, not just technically), then have a larger game with uninspiring locales.
How about a keyboard with some pressure sensitive
WASD keys? That is one thing console controllers are better at... you can adjust your character's speed with an analog control.
A mouse is better for view control, of course.
I think he was just plain wrong. Unreal doesn't have seperate compiled and source maps though, there is just one file for the map.
If you cut down a tree in the Garden of Eden the day it was made, would it have rings in it?
Even if you (grandparent) believe in a six day creation, things were still created with an appearance of age.... If the animals and Adam were created as fully developed adults, why not the whole universe?
I actually have a TV, DVD, VCR combo. It is very easy to use... just put in the tape or DVD and press play. No wires or modes to deal with. If one of the players goes bad, an external player can still be connected.
:-)
The automatic PC gaming machine thing will fail though
You make the assumption that you have to buy the games the day they come out.
The major FPS games (unreal,quake/doom, halflife) have several years between iterations. Just buy the game a year or two late, and the game costs less money, and so does the hardware. I think some games should be near the bleeding edge of hardare requirements when released... they'll be around for a while.
Patience also works with consoles. You can get a Gamecube for $99 with a free game, and most of the best games for it are now $20-30.
Most TVs are much brighter and have more contrast than a computer monitor.
Low resolution content often looks better on a low resolution TV (I hate watching normal TV resolution content on an HDTV)
My second point doesn't have much to do with this article though.