One thing both you and the project manager need to understand is:
The project manager deals with the business side of things. The technical lead deals with the technical side of things.
So while he may be setting (or have forced upon him) aspects such as deadlines, you need to control scope, methodology and quality. Communicate with him constantly. Imply (if not state explicitly) that you need to work on resource allocation, something he may be trying to plan for you right now. to have everything stated down on paper is best for both of you, you can at least then agree or disagree and sort things out.
It may also help to implement a proper development strategy you can agree on - if he won't listen, just escalate the issue. One that is tried and tested is a good bet, whether it's Extreme programming (a good suggestion) or something coming from the business side of things.
Whichever it is, the problem here seems to arise from a lack of definability of responsibility and roles, and that's what needs to be set and agreed upon so you can both do your job properly! He's probably as exasperated at you at the moment;)
Fross
(a technical architect working as a project manager!)
point. morrowind's only just out over here (UK) anyway, grumble.
however as you point out, it's not suited to the console as well as to PC. i guess it's like dreamcast quake3 players being rocked by PC players who can use mouse/keyboard combination!
TVs, as nice and big as they are, suck once you're used to good image quality.
Go play GTA3 on a PC in 1280x1024, then go back and try to play it on a console hooked up to a TV. no comparison!
I'd say invest in a way to play PC games more comfortably. Either be able to hook it up to your TV/Audio system and get a good surface to control it on from the couch, or get a better chair (and audio) setup for your PC.
Any successful PC game these days, except for a few extremely successful franchises, either is ported from a console, or is ported to a console immediately.
So your argument is, that any game either starts on PC and goes to consoles, or starts on consoles and goes to PC. Well, umm, duh. That's the entire subset of ports, a to b or b to a!
Not to mention you're actually wrong. Let me know when consoles have even half of the top PC games of the last year - CS, RtCW, Tribes2, SoF2, the Sim/Civ games, MoH:AA, Dungeon Siege... and all the RTS type games. Heard any news of Warcraft 3 or Neverwinter Nights or Morrowind making it to console? No. they just don't work there.
Sure, there are some ports (GTA, Soul reaver, and stuff) but they don't do nearly as well on PC. Some games suit different environments (and more specifically, different control mechanisms) better than others.
the financial requirements almost require that it be available on as many platforms as possible.
Well, yes. If you have a game on platform A that is obviously popular and suits platform B's usual demographic, why not port it? exclusivity is not a good thing. As M$ will probably find out. hehe.
The kind of diversity and originality that used to characterize computer games, since their origin in text-based strategy and adventure games in fact, can no longer be supported by the adolescent and console-driven market of today.
Wrong again. There are different types of platform, as you said yourself, and there are different types of games. And different audiences. In so far as this not being as good as "the good old days", _every_ computer back then had the same game, or clones of the same game, be it hunt the wumpus, double dragon, summer games or whatever. Whether you had a spectrum, C64, Amstrad CPC464 or whatever, your selection was pretty much the same.
Second, the hardware requirements are completely out of touch with most computers actually in use. A lot of people who don't play video games probably have computers less than half as fast as the recommended system, and are quite content with them.
I disagree strongly. The hardware requirements for FFXI (to stay on topic) are components over 2 years old (P3-800, any geforce), which is well within the life-cycle of a usual upgrade. And this is for a game that isn't even nearly out yet! There are processors almost 3 times as fast, and graphics cards with twice the _recommended_ (not minimum) memory that have been available for months! have a look at computers on sale these days, you can't even BUY anything with less than a 1Ghz processor anymore, even at entry level. I'm sure you don't need it to run your text adventures, but then again FFXI and other games are not targeted to that audience. "People who don't play video games" probably don't care either way anyway, so it's a moot point.
And the people who have the hardware to run this...a strong majority of them are probably sufficiently involved with video games that they own a Playstation 2 anyway.
This makes no sense. "People who have invested a lot of money to get a kickass PC gaming system probably bought a different system so they can play games on that instead." Wtf?
PCs still remain the most powerful gaming platform. Hell, the Xbox has just had its arse kicked by the Geforce4 and it's only been out a few months. There are niches to every side of gaming, from Gamecube to PS2 and Xbox to PC. And of course you playing your text adventures.
Each to their own, I guess, but please, don't dismiss something just because you don't understand it.
Fross
(and FWIW, as you should have seen on this forum many times, Free operating systems are just as available for consoles as they are PCs!):)
One of the things they have been talking about for a long while was Cyc approaching the ability to "read" for itself, and gather new information for it's database from the web
Oh yeah, I can just see Cyc telling its programmers that it is working on losing 60 lbs in 30 days and MAKING MONEY FA$T.
if it's allowed to scour the net for long enough, how long until it asks "Daddy, what's a money shot?"
I think one of the key points in our own "evolution" was the awareness of evolution as constant change, and more importantly the ability for us to consciously choose what features we wanted to encourage or discourage.
This is a double-edged sword, as evolution now is no longer the realm of instinct, but of consciuous decision, but at the same time its effect is diluted, by the ability to "mimic" what is seen as desirable, evolutionary or otherwise. For instance, an evolutionary instinct to encourage males mating with blond-haired, blue-eyed large-breasted women is diluted in a practical sense by hair dye, coloured contacts and silicon implants.
People who alter themselves to fit our instinct are promoting "false" or "substandard" genes, which in turn means less[1] people for the next generation with desirable features.
Fross
[1] or, at least on average the same, which would be an evolutionary step of zero:)
Remember, MS is allowed to compete in as many markets as it likes, as long as they compete in a fair (and I use the word loosely) manner, and they don't gain a position in that market due to a monopolistic position in another market.
But that is exactly what they would do, and have already started doing. Take these three points:
a) Microsoft pushes their own proprietary formats over open standard ones (Windows XP - WMA encoding, high quality mp3 encoding not included by default). This approach would be mirrored in Video formats as soon as is convenient for them.
b) Microsoft moves into "home entertainment center" arena with the X-Box. Which among other things either plays DVDs already or will do with a simple expansion (i am not familiar which, it isn't out in the Uk here yet afaik!)
c) DVD standard "upgrade" supports microsoft video formats. No doubt the Xbox will support these as soon as anyone else.
The upshot of this is that Microsoft can and _will_ use their position as dominant OS manufaturer to force out other formats in the DVD market as consumer use of video recording and editing increases (just as audio has been doing for the past 2-3 years). And it will use its clout to ensure that other manufacturers use their new system or are forced out.
Remember, Hollywood would love the chance to endorse and embrace a new technology that adopts new protection, with the failure of CSS and SDMI, and Microsoft would have the technology and ubiquitousness to give them that, through manipulating their enormous OS monopoly.
you seem to have a poor grasp of what patenting is, or rather, what it has become thanks to the ignorance of the USPTO.
what you seem to be trying to protect is the copyright of an owner over their work. this is not disputed. if someone, or a business, spends lots of time developing a compression algorithm (for instance), then their work should be protected from being stolen. i agree with you 100%.
however, taking out a patent on something like a compression algorithm (or rather, the USPTO being small-minded enough to grant it), is tantamount to "all your compression algorithms that you may develop in the future, regardless of whether they're based on this work or developed entirely from scratch, are belong to me." a patent protects the whole idea of something (eg, in these days i'm sure Ford would have tried to patent the car.)
the problem is the USPTO is awarding very vague patents, such as this one AT&T is claiming, not on the basis of doing groundbreaking work, but simply because they apply for it. it's like domain-squatting, but with intellectual property. and that's what's sick about it.
In essence the "gesture recognition" system is tracing out a 2-dimensional shape, with (in the case of Black and White, for instance) accuracy affecting performance. Of course the benefit of it is mostly ease of use.
With that in mind, a fast intuitive "pointing" device is best for this purpose. A touchpad allows you to sketch these shapes out with your finger, and in fact Black and White with one (with the accuracy set right!) is great. I imagine a graphics would be great for this purpose as well.
On a related note, anyone else here seen the "menu" system in Sacrifice? instead of it being a dropdown system, it's cross-shaped, with new crosses spawned from each vertex. very fast, and no need for great accuracy when choosing selections. couldn't find a screenshot i'm afraid, but it's similar to the "circular" menu systems seen around.
always had my eye on Opera as it was pretty good, but i have to say 5 was good enough for me to register as well. it renders quickly, can use plugins, is incredibly stable, has many wonderful features for configuration and filtering, and can pretend to be different browsers for badly-written sites:)
I'm a web developer, and the only time I go into IE now is to doublecheck that its bad implementation doesn't break things i'm working on.
Some may claim the move onto the net of the Average Joe is a boon for society as a whole, but it won't be for those of us who've been here a while (evern if we are young, white, male, and career-oriented)
though i'd say it's a lot longer than 3 years ago, the state of the Internet when i joined (mostly academic, with very little independant use except usually ex-academics on dialups), Usenet was informative and useful, searches (on gopher before the web) were concise and accurate, people followed posting standards for all manner of content, and users were helpful, well-mannered and well-informed. it was a pleasure to be there. no having to wade through reams of "DOOD HOW DO I GET BRITNEY SPEARS PR0N????/".
seems to me the increase in numbers has not been matched with an increase, or even consistency, in netiquette/resourcefulness. seems perhaps the old adage of "there is a finite amount of intelligence in the world" may be true substituting "usefulness" and "the internet"...
there are still areas of good stuff on the net, but they're increasingly hard to find. best of luck.
david
Re:This is proof of concept, and not too dangerous
on
Gnutella "Virus" Roams
·
· Score: 2
i happen to be a gnutella user who runs a reasonable size server, under a windows client. i dont see how it won't affect me.:>
people who follow basic internet security procedures (dont open unknown exe files, for instance) won't be affected, or indeed effected, by it. would you drive a car without learning what all those signs mean?:)
I've seen this over the last couple of weeks on Gnutella servers. There's been some other discussion about it, I believe on The Register, and i've done a bit of nosing round myself.
Ultimately this is not a threat. It is quite obvious to spot (if someone is searching for, for instance "chemical brothers" it'll return "chemical brothers.exe", which is an unexpected result, ie no track name and not an mp3 or so), though i have seen a variation that tries to disguise the fact that it is an exe (i've seen some spurious entries in "file type" entries under the Gnucleus client), and even if infected, your machine runs as a server for the virus - as far as i can tell, this won't make your machine run as a server when you're not running a gnutella client/server anyway, it'll simply return itself when someone's search hits your machine.
Many (sensible) clients already screen out several types of files, such as.vbs, and.exe - these won't be susceptible to the worm at all. All the worm does is relpicate itself, nothing else. Though that's not to say someone else isn't going to use this mechanism to write something a lot nastier. But for now, it should only affect the terminally stupid or extremely unwary:) and Windows users to boot!;)
in the case of defence, that is indeed the case, but that is not all. spies aren't just doing the daring "steal the nuclear warhead plans" missions. most of what government deals with is mundane in comparison, concerned with commerce. keeping these as "National Secrets", in the case of somewhere like the USA, is simply to maintain the country's status with respect to less developed countries.
i agree with your points, but that's not the issue i'm driving at. it's not like this sensitive weaponry stuff is really kept to just one or two superpowers in the world anymore. i'm sure the spying was much more mundane than that, concerning things which, in my opinion, are accredited National Secret status simply for the country's self-interest.
thinking about it, all spies are doing is redistributing information from within closed, proprietary systems... if countries didn't have "intellectual property", there would be no need for spies.
..those "screens" you'd clip over the front of your CRT to reduce glare (and radiation, as was touted back in the 80s. But then again monitors back then could be pretty damn dangerous) - they made everything soft and fuzzy. blurry, to be honest. If anything they caused more eye strain as you tried to make out what anything was behind it:> like having a permanently really filthy screen.
Even the original Geforce2 had some FSAA (or approximation thereof), and that's over 6 months old. There's some (independant) information about that here.
Additionally the Voodoo 5 has had full FSAA since its launch. So I think they've been working on it for a while, and it's likely the NV20 will have it - it's probably just been one of the less touted figures so far.
As i understand it, FSAA actually antialiases every single pixel.. Surely this is incredibly inefficient, since antialiasing the already bilinearly-interpolated texture of the interior of a polygon is somewhat pointless.
True, textured 3d polygons are already antialiased by definition (you take a texture, resample and stretch it to fit on the polygon depending on what angle you're viewing it at, voila). The one part that isn't is the edge of these textures. Hence why when you're playing halflife or whatever and everything is rendered nice and softly, if you look up at the edge of a building against the sky, it's horrible and jagged.
FSAA, the way i understand it, softens these edges before sending the image along. It doesn't affect the actual contents of polygons, just their edges.
Slashdot Mirror
One thing both you and the project manager need to understand is:
;)
The project manager deals with the business side of things.
The technical lead deals with the technical side of things.
So while he may be setting (or have forced upon him) aspects such as deadlines, you need to control scope, methodology and quality. Communicate with him constantly. Imply (if not state explicitly) that you need to work on resource allocation, something he may be trying to plan for you right now. to have everything stated down on paper is best for both of you, you can at least then agree or disagree and sort things out.
It may also help to implement a proper development strategy you can agree on - if he won't listen, just escalate the issue. One that is tried and tested is a good bet, whether it's Extreme programming (a good suggestion) or something coming from the business side of things.
Whichever it is, the problem here seems to arise from a lack of definability of responsibility and roles, and that's what needs to be set and agreed upon so you can both do your job properly! He's probably as exasperated at you at the moment
Fross
(a technical architect working as a project manager!)
Philips created the CD. About 18 years ago.
And that includes 3" CDs of course, which were the first portable digital audio media, and still used in stuff like digital cameras today.
Fross
point. morrowind's only just out over here (UK) anyway, grumble.
however as you point out, it's not suited to the console as well as to PC. i guess it's like dreamcast quake3 players being rocked by PC players who can use mouse/keyboard combination!
Fross
graphics card with a TV-out would solve that one. though of course you wouldn't get the image quality from a monitor.
:>
got lucky and picked up a 22" flatscreen that does 1600x1200 nicely for $140 after an office clearance, w00t.
Fross
TVs, as nice and big as they are, suck once you're used to good image quality.
Go play GTA3 on a PC in 1280x1024, then go back and try to play it on a console hooked up to a TV. no comparison!
I'd say invest in a way to play PC games more comfortably. Either be able to hook it up to your TV/Audio system and get a good surface to control it on from the couch, or get a better chair (and audio) setup for your PC.
Uh, circular arguments here...
:)
Any successful PC game these days, except for a few extremely successful franchises, either is ported from a console, or is ported to a console immediately.
So your argument is, that any game either starts on PC and goes to consoles, or starts on consoles and goes to PC. Well, umm, duh. That's the entire subset of ports, a to b or b to a!
Not to mention you're actually wrong. Let me know when consoles have even half of the top PC games of the last year - CS, RtCW, Tribes2, SoF2, the Sim/Civ games, MoH:AA, Dungeon Siege... and all the RTS type games. Heard any news of Warcraft 3 or Neverwinter Nights or Morrowind making it to console? No. they just don't work there.
Sure, there are some ports (GTA, Soul reaver, and stuff) but they don't do nearly as well on PC. Some games suit different environments (and more specifically, different control mechanisms) better than others.
the financial requirements almost require that it be available on as many platforms as possible.
Well, yes. If you have a game on platform A that is obviously popular and suits platform B's usual demographic, why not port it? exclusivity is not a good thing. As M$ will probably find out. hehe.
The kind of diversity and originality that used to characterize computer games, since their origin in text-based strategy and adventure games in fact, can no longer be supported by the adolescent and console-driven market of today.
Wrong again. There are different types of platform, as you said yourself, and there are different types of games. And different audiences.
In so far as this not being as good as "the good old days", _every_ computer back then had the same game, or clones of the same game, be it hunt the wumpus, double dragon, summer games or whatever. Whether you had a spectrum, C64, Amstrad CPC464 or whatever, your selection was pretty much the same.
Second, the hardware requirements are completely out of touch with most computers actually in use. A lot of people who don't play video games probably have computers less than half as fast as the recommended system, and are quite content with them.
I disagree strongly. The hardware requirements for FFXI (to stay on topic) are components over 2 years old (P3-800, any geforce), which is well within the life-cycle of a usual upgrade. And this is for a game that isn't even nearly out yet! There are processors almost 3 times as fast, and graphics cards with twice the _recommended_ (not minimum) memory that have been available for months!
have a look at computers on sale these days, you can't even BUY anything with less than a 1Ghz processor anymore, even at entry level. I'm sure you don't need it to run your text adventures, but then again FFXI and other games are not targeted to that audience. "People who don't play video games" probably don't care either way anyway, so it's a moot point.
And the people who have the hardware to run this...a strong majority of them are probably sufficiently involved with video games that they own a Playstation 2 anyway.
This makes no sense. "People who have invested a lot of money to get a kickass PC gaming system probably bought a different system so they can play games on that instead." Wtf?
PCs still remain the most powerful gaming platform. Hell, the Xbox has just had its arse kicked by the Geforce4 and it's only been out a few months. There are niches to every side of gaming, from Gamecube to PS2 and Xbox to PC. And of course you playing your text adventures.
Each to their own, I guess, but please, don't dismiss something just because you don't understand it.
Fross
(and FWIW, as you should have seen on this forum many times, Free operating systems are just as available for consoles as they are PCs!)
Oh yeah, I can just see Cyc telling its programmers that it is working on losing 60 lbs in 30 days and MAKING MONEY FA$T.
if it's allowed to scour the net for long enough, how long until it asks "Daddy, what's a money shot?"
heh.
Fross
I think one of the key points in our own "evolution" was the awareness of evolution as constant change, and more importantly the ability for us to consciously choose what features we wanted to encourage or discourage.
:)
This is a double-edged sword, as evolution now is no longer the realm of instinct, but of consciuous decision, but at the same time its effect is diluted, by the ability to "mimic" what is seen as desirable, evolutionary or otherwise. For instance, an evolutionary instinct to encourage males mating with blond-haired, blue-eyed large-breasted women is diluted in a practical sense by hair dye, coloured contacts and silicon implants.
People who alter themselves to fit our instinct are promoting "false" or "substandard" genes, which in turn means less[1] people for the next generation with desirable features.
Fross
[1] or, at least on average the same, which would be an evolutionary step of zero
But that is exactly what they would do, and have already started doing. Take these three points:
a) Microsoft pushes their own proprietary formats over open standard ones (Windows XP - WMA encoding, high quality mp3 encoding not included by default). This approach would be mirrored in Video formats as soon as is convenient for them.
b) Microsoft moves into "home entertainment center" arena with the X-Box. Which among other things either plays DVDs already or will do with a simple expansion (i am not familiar which, it isn't out in the Uk here yet afaik!)
c) DVD standard "upgrade" supports microsoft video formats. No doubt the Xbox will support these as soon as anyone else.
The upshot of this is that Microsoft can and _will_ use their position as dominant OS manufaturer to force out other formats in the DVD market as consumer use of video recording and editing increases (just as audio has been doing for the past 2-3 years). And it will use its clout to ensure that other manufacturers use their new system or are forced out.
Remember, Hollywood would love the chance to endorse and embrace a new technology that adopts new protection, with the failure of CSS and SDMI, and Microsoft would have the technology and ubiquitousness to give them that, through manipulating their enormous OS monopoly.
Fross
You could get a 20ft phone extension cord for about $5. It's not like this actually goes any further than that...
you seem to have a poor grasp of what patenting is, or rather, what it has become thanks to the ignorance of the USPTO.
what you seem to be trying to protect is the copyright of an owner over their work. this is not disputed. if someone, or a business, spends lots of time developing a compression algorithm (for instance), then their work should be protected from being stolen. i agree with you 100%.
however, taking out a patent on something like a compression algorithm (or rather, the USPTO being small-minded enough to grant it), is tantamount to "all your compression algorithms that you may develop in the future, regardless of whether they're based on this work or developed entirely from scratch, are belong to me." a patent protects the whole idea of something (eg, in these days i'm sure Ford would have tried to patent the car.)
the problem is the USPTO is awarding very vague patents, such as this one AT&T is claiming, not on the basis of doing groundbreaking work, but simply because they apply for it. it's like domain-squatting, but with intellectual property. and that's what's sick about it.
/fross
In essence the "gesture recognition" system is tracing out a 2-dimensional shape, with (in the case of Black and White, for instance) accuracy affecting performance. Of course the benefit of it is mostly ease of use.
With that in mind, a fast intuitive "pointing" device is best for this purpose. A touchpad allows you to sketch these shapes out with your finger, and in fact Black and White with one (with the accuracy set right!) is great. I imagine a graphics would be great for this purpose as well.
On a related note, anyone else here seen the "menu" system in Sacrifice? instead of it being a dropdown system, it's cross-shaped, with new crosses spawned from each vertex. very fast, and no need for great accuracy when choosing selections. couldn't find a screenshot i'm afraid, but it's similar to the "circular" menu systems seen around.
/fross
Currently as the site is slashdotted i'm getting an amazing 17 bytes/second from them. So these 5k sites will still take minutes to download :D
now THAT's web karma for you.
fross
Me too.
:)
always had my eye on Opera as it was pretty good, but i have to say 5 was good enough for me to register as well. it renders quickly, can use plugins, is incredibly stable, has many wonderful features for configuration and filtering, and can pretend to be different browsers for badly-written sites
I'm a web developer, and the only time I go into IE now is to doublecheck that its bad implementation doesn't break things i'm working on.
Fross
Some may claim the move onto the net of the Average Joe is a boon for society as a whole, but it won't be for those of us who've been here a while (evern if we are young, white, male, and career-oriented)
though i'd say it's a lot longer than 3 years ago, the state of the Internet when i joined (mostly academic, with very little independant use except usually ex-academics on dialups), Usenet was informative and useful, searches (on gopher before the web) were concise and accurate, people followed posting standards for all manner of content, and users were helpful, well-mannered and well-informed. it was a pleasure to be there. no having to wade through reams of "DOOD HOW DO I GET BRITNEY SPEARS PR0N????/".
seems to me the increase in numbers has not been matched with an increase, or even consistency, in netiquette/resourcefulness. seems perhaps the old adage of "there is a finite amount of intelligence in the world" may be true substituting "usefulness" and "the internet"...
there are still areas of good stuff on the net, but they're increasingly hard to find. best of luck.
david
i happen to be a gnutella user who runs a reasonable size server, under a windows client. i dont see how it won't affect me. :>
:)
people who follow basic internet security procedures (dont open unknown exe files, for instance) won't be affected, or indeed effected, by it. would you drive a car without learning what all those signs mean?
I've seen this over the last couple of weeks on Gnutella servers. There's been some other discussion about it, I believe on The Register, and i've done a bit of nosing round myself.
.vbs, and .exe - these won't be susceptible to the worm at all. All the worm does is relpicate itself, nothing else. Though that's not to say someone else isn't going to use this mechanism to write something a lot nastier. But for now, it should only affect the terminally stupid or extremely unwary :) and Windows users to boot! ;)
Ultimately this is not a threat. It is quite obvious to spot (if someone is searching for, for instance "chemical brothers" it'll return "chemical brothers.exe", which is an unexpected result, ie no track name and not an mp3 or so), though i have seen a variation that tries to disguise the fact that it is an exe (i've seen some spurious entries in "file type" entries under the Gnucleus client), and even if infected, your machine runs as a server for the virus - as far as i can tell, this won't make your machine run as a server when you're not running a gnutella client/server anyway, it'll simply return itself when someone's search hits your machine.
Many (sensible) clients already screen out several types of files, such as
/Fross
you have no chance to survive make your time.
What you say?
in the case of defence, that is indeed the case, but that is not all. spies aren't just doing the daring "steal the nuclear warhead plans" missions. most of what government deals with is mundane in comparison, concerned with commerce. keeping these as "National Secrets", in the case of somewhere like the USA, is simply to maintain the country's status with respect to less developed countries.
i agree with your points, but that's not the issue i'm driving at. it's not like this sensitive weaponry stuff is really kept to just one or two superpowers in the world anymore. i'm sure the spying was much more mundane than that, concerning things which, in my opinion, are accredited National Secret status simply for the country's self-interest.
Fross
thinking about it, all spies are doing is redistributing information from within closed, proprietary systems... if countries didn't have "intellectual property", there would be no need for spies.
(not to be taken _too_ seriously)
Fross
..those "screens" you'd clip over the front of your CRT to reduce glare (and radiation, as was touted back in the 80s. But then again monitors back then could be pretty damn dangerous) - they made everything soft and fuzzy. blurry, to be honest. If anything they caused more eye strain as you tried to make out what anything was behind it :> like having a permanently really filthy screen.
Fross
Additionally the Voodoo 5 has had full FSAA since its launch. So I think they've been working on it for a while, and it's likely the NV20 will have it - it's probably just been one of the less touted figures so far.
Fross
True, textured 3d polygons are already antialiased by definition (you take a texture, resample and stretch it to fit on the polygon depending on what angle you're viewing it at, voila). The one part that isn't is the edge of these textures. Hence why when you're playing halflife or whatever and everything is rendered nice and softly, if you look up at the edge of a building against the sky, it's horrible and jagged.
FSAA, the way i understand it, softens these edges before sending the image along. It doesn't affect the actual contents of polygons, just their edges.
Fross
It's a perfectly anti-aliased blank screen though, isn't it? and with no performance hit! :)
/Fross