Re:PC is hardly dead - but it may not be very well
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Vanishing Game Genres
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· Score: 2
I would have to agree with most of this assessment. But, I think that the blame can be placed squarely on the Video/Sound/CPU manufacturers. After all, if games were just fun to play and didn't include the latest whiz-bang features, then how would they sell their products? I think developers are getting swamped by trying to create games which utilize these new features and not spending enough time making games which are fun to play.
That is one of the reasons why I was actually pleased with Blizzards Diablo II release. Yes, it was late, yes it has problems, but YES IT'S D@MN ADDICTING!! They didn't worry about making the latest-greatest-fancy-schmancy-graphics. But look what happened, the first thing you heard from everyone (after "f'n Battle.Net") was one of:
"These graphics blow!"
"Why is this at 640x480?"
"How come I can't connect to Battle.Net?" (OK, I had to throw that one in:) )
My point is that gamers are _never_ satisfied, and I think this is largely due to the fact that 3dfx/nVidia just convinced them to buy their latest vid-card, and they want to get their money's worth.
As someone who wants to break into this industry, I just hope that there are some good companies left when I get there. It seems like the good companies are dying faster than they can be created (***lamenting LGs death***). People aren't interested in good games, they want pretty ones.
My.02c
TheJet
The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
I think this is a non-issue. The reason I say this is simple:
If I am a banner-ad company, I can find new ways to get the ad to your browser. I can have my clients run small proxies on their web-servers, I can change the size of my ad, I can do anything I really would like to do.
My point is that this feature is nice, and I would like to see it, but it merely makes showing ads more inconvenient. There are quite a few companies that are running their own ad campaigns, and are serving the images up from their own servers, so this wouldn't eliminate those ads. Not only that, but if you start getting too image-blocking happy, you end up with the web as it was 5 years ago ($shudder$).
I have some problems with the web as it is today, but would I want to take a step back that far?? No thank you. The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
Re:nVidia has incentive to remain closed-source...
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GPL Violation - NVIDIA
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· Score: 1
Thank You!! Finally someone understands...
No, that is what the "Lesser GPL" (formerly Library GPL) does. The (greater?) GPL both keeps improvements free, and prevents most use in non-open software (in fact, not just non-open, but non-GPL). You can not use GPL'ed code in a open source project that uses a non-GPL license. It's the same for MPL'ed code too....
By putting your code under the GPL, you are restricting someone else's decision about your code. If I create something, then put it under the GPL, I am denying anyone else from doing what they want with it. If they rewrite the thing, but include even a snippet of my code, they must include the source for the whole thing, or I can sue. Isn't the whole point of Open Source the free exchange of information?? If you are so worried about someone making a buck off your work, then why did you publish in the first place??
By using something like the BSDL, you can get your thoughts/ideas out there, and you don't restrict anyone's use of it. When I release something under the BSDL, I am offering other developers the same choice that I had, release it as commercial, keep it public, GPL-it, whatever. The point is that people who use the GPL are doing the same thing that closed source people are (albeit in the opposite direction).
A good analogy for this is the recent debate in Oklahoma about Evolution/Creationism. They first got textbooks to remove the "Evolution is fact, Creation is myth" in favor of "Evolution is a theory, just like Creationism". Then they turn around and want the textbooks to say "Creationism is correct, and Evolution is ". They have used the "open" argument to remove unwanted text from the books, and are now using the "closed" argument to eliminate their "competition".
The GPL is not the free exchange of information. It is as highly restricted as closed sourcing your project, except in the opposite direction.
Just my 2c. TheJet The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
Interesting reply. I would expect that you have some reasons for being so harsh, maybe you didn't get enough coffee??
I will ignore the personal insults and get to what I believe was your point. Mostly that I "read AI on the back of the game box". Game Theory is and as far as I know will always be a valid portion of AI. I have taken my share of AI classes, and while I do not claim to be an expert in the field, I am not a brianless drone either.
I would love for you to prove to me as to why game theory (and it's application in any given computer game) fails to fall under the extremely broad category of AI. The entire purpose of the game engine is to simulate human interaction, as if you were playing against another human. I would wager that John Carmack (and I'm not claiming to know John or his thoughts) believes that the "artificial intelligence" that have been programmed into the Q3 bots would qualify as AI.
Now, I wonder, do you have a civilized response, or are you just trying to piss me off?
For the past 40 years, AI has just been 10 years or so away. It's still just 10 years or so away. It's not getting any closer.
First off, there are many different definitions for AI. If you mean "a machine that is indistinguishable from a human" (at least without looking at it), then you may be right. However, I would say that AI in general has taken great strides in many areas. This is especially true for games.
I'll use this specific example: The Heroes of Might & Magic series. In the first game (HOMM I), the computer AI absolutely sucked, and you could easily beat it by hanging back and waiting for them to come to you. In the second and third installments, the AI became much more sophisticated. Now a unit may move only a portion of its allotted distance if moving all the way would put it in danger.
That is of course, a grossly oversimplified example, but things like game playing and expert systems have come a long way. Both of these are valid fields of AI, even if "human imitating" is what everyone thinks of when they say AI. So to say that AI hasn't made any significant strides in the past 40 years, is a oversimplification to say the least. Besides, do you honestly think that we are no closer today than we were 40 years ago?? (On a side note, I seem to remember little pamphlets they used to hand out in the early eighties about how we would all be flying around with Jetpacks by now, and colonizing the moon. Anyone think maybe they made a mistake on those?)
I think it is probably one of humanity's greatest moments of hubris to assume that we are what computers should strive to be.
Well, here goes, please hear me out before you start flaming...
1. The author makes a whole lot of claims, but fails to back up many of them with any real data. Netcraft is mentioned a couple of times, but other than that, there is no hard data.
2. The author is clearly biased towards UNIX over M$ products (you can basically discount his comments about SMP support, as everyone has pointed out that it is a bogus argument). Not only that, but nearly the entire article is about how great Linux is. I will be the first to say that Linux is a high quality OS, but there are also alot of things that Windows does well. I believe that his shots against W2K are unjustified and misplaced. Has any company/group released a bug-free/best performing OS on their first version. W2K had many problems to overcome, and considering the amount of code they had to merge in and make work on NT, I am actually surprised at the performance.
By the same token as he says to look at Linux when 2.4 comes out, the same can be said for Windows (or any other OS). Wait until SP2/3 comes out and you'll see marked performance increases. Anyone who builds a sufficiently complex system knows that it takes a while to iron out the wrinkles.
3. I use FreeBSD and Linux, and to say that you need to be a FreeBSD expert to run it as compared to Linux, is just plain wrong. FreeBSD takes no more monkeying around than Linux does to get it to perform well. As a matter of fact, I find the layout of some Linux dists (read RedHat) to be significantly harder to configure than FreeBSD.
The way that he dismissed the BSDs is IMHO shortsighted to say the least (with the exception of his comments on webserving). What he fails to mention is that FreeBSD can run any binary that runs on Linux. And there is a strong push to get a native port of Java (much like there was for Linux).
There are many other things I could say, but I'll leave it at that. The article was an interesting editorial, but it is just that, an editorial. The author clearly has biases and it should be taken as every other editorial is, with a grain of salt. It was nice of the author to promote interoperability, but it should have been done in a less editorial fashion.
My 4c (all little too long for just 2c) The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
Thanks for the reply, I believe you are correct about the T-Buffer hardware "jitter" thing. I'll have to check 3dfx's documentation. My main point was that the card has to render the same scene multiple times (into each of it's n T-buffers), then merge the scene together to produce the effect. This is how it was shown in documentation I read, and in the demos that 3dfx gave (of course these were emulated).
I agree with you that Glide was needed at the time, but I would have rather seen them work with others, or with the OpenGL standards committee to get the job done. I realize (and don't think I ever said otherwise) that 3dfx was never a monopoly (although they acted like one, @ least in the 3D consumer market). And I agree that they did hold onto Glide longer than was good for the gaming/development community.
But, I don't think nVidia or ATI ever had a proprietary 3D API (please correct me if I'm wrong), I know of S3's (wasn't it much older than Glide??) and PowerVRs (I used to own one... yuck!). I didn't agree with PowerVR's work with PowerSGL either, it was just much cheaper than buying a voodoo1 when I got it:).
I don't think 3dfx's Glide was wrong for the time (and you're right, the hardware was quite amazing for the time period [jeesh! not too long ago]), but the fact that it even began shows how short-sighted the entire 3D industry was at the time. Don't be mistaken, 3dfx (3Dfx at the time) wanted to become the M$ of 3D, lucky for us that they failed.
First, what if you write the whole thing around a rectangular rod (i.e. elongated cube): Take each four-letter combination and write it vertically, then match up the vertical sections, then look at each section and rewrite it in whatever direction makes the text readable. This could then be encrypted using standard replacement techniques. Has anyone done a count on whether each type of character has the same number of occurrences in the cipher??
Second, I had flashbacks of an old 3-2-1-Contact episode where they wrote a code around a broomstick, i.e. wrap the paper around a broomstick, then write the message across it, then unravel the paper and transcribe the character pattern. Then you tell your friend how far apart the letters should be and what size broomstick you used and they can decode the message by reversing what you did...
The Voodoo5 has a feature 3dfx calls the "T-Buffer", basically an accumulation buffer which can also be used for Full Screen Anti-Aliasing, Motion Blur, Soft Shadows, and Soft Reflections. All effects require the software to support the feature, except for anti-aliasing, which can be done automatically.
This is all fine and dandy, but this is hardly hardware support for things like depth of field. It requires that you render the scene n-times just to achieve a single frame. Real hardware support (for depth of field) would allow you to specify the focal length and the hardware would automatically blur non-focussed areas automatically.
While the 3dfx "T-Buffer" affects are nice, I can't imagine developers using them, since it would lock the developers into certain hardware (again!). This is something that I thought was insane when Glide first came around. These type of proprietary extensions are exactly why I have never and will never buy 3dfx-only games or 3dfx video cards. You said it above, "basically an accumulation buffer", instead of using this type of thing, why not make an open extension to OpenGL/Direct3D to support these type of effects.
Full scene anti-aliasing is one of the few "new" features that 3dfx cards sport that I actually like, and that I think will be useful in future games.
Have you ever actually played Diablo?? If you have then obviously you would know that you can shoot in far more than the four cardinal directions.
Also, if you've played any real amount then you would know that there is a fair amount of strategy to the game as long as you don't play below your skill level. I won't go into it here, but obviously you haven't played the game much.
If you don't like the game then say so, sure it isn't the classic RPG, but it does have RPG elements. It allows those who don't want to have to think about how much Charisma their player should have to gain entry to the genre. Sometimes RPGs get so embedded in themselves that they become impossible/unfun to play (read FFVIII). I love RPGs, and I have no problem with Diablo calling itself one. Now if Quake were to do the same:)...
Thanks for the reply. That is actually one of the better replies I've received. Sorry if I came off a little harsh. I am just sick of people spouting this stuff without having even an inkling of what goes into the process.
It at least looks like you thought about the post before posting.
Fine, they tried to consolidate their domains. First off, it may not even have been Blizzard who did it, since the letter states only that their parent company wishes this guy to give up his domain.
Second, the guy was according to the article a domain squat^H^H^H^Hpeculator.
"...domain speculator who has used the alias domainiac to refer to himself..."
Is this a practice anyone here wants to advocate?? I personally think it is a disgusting practice, and is one of the problems with the existing domain naming system. Many smaller companies have been forced to take "less than optimal" names because of this practice.
Third, I'm surprised at this post. Clearly this isn't a case of the little guy getting squashed by the big evil empire. He still has the site, and he had all kinds of lawyers and other mumbo-jumbo on his side as well. Don't cry for "domainiac".
This kind of attitude is the reason I don't read/. as much anymore. It is really kind of disappointing. The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
First, let me preface this with the fact that I do not work for Blizzard (unless they want to hire me:))
It's almost amusing how they can spare staff to produce 70 minute soundtrack CDs, 24 minute DVD titles, a f*cking DnD based paper RPG, and a manual signed by the development team when they can't even get product out the door. I think a better use of developer time would be finishing off the code, not signing autographs.
This has got to be one of the most bone-headed comments I have heard in quite some time. Don't you realize that all this stuff (with the exception of the paper RPG, but I believe this was not developed by Blizzard anyway) had to all be made anyway?? How long does it take to compile the audio from 4 CDs and dump it onto one for everyone's listening pleasure. Do you want a game shipped without a manual (and how long does it take someone to sign their name)?? Do you think that the DVD movie is much different than the cut scenes from the game (probably including some that didn't make it into the game)??
It's comments like this that make the software industry what it is today. If more companies spent the time and energy to create excellent, nearly bug-free games (which Blizzard has an excellent history ot doing) the world would be a much better place. I am perfectly willing to wait for a game that works out-of-box, without having to download a patch before I can play the thing.
@!$$%#!, I hate this mentality, but I'll stop now.
Well considering I'm still getting emails from Verisign about a company I worked for 2 years ago...
Seriously, Verisign has been notoriously bad at responding to anything, add that to an already aging NetSol and you have a doubly-slow, doubly-inept corporation. The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
Are you kidding? The L1 cache is DAMN important...
I am well aware of the importance of the L1 cache. I would highly doubt that it accounts for 90% of the performance of the CPU however.
This means that sequential loops will run mostly in the L1 cache. The L1 gets fed basically once if you can keep all the inner data inside the L1.
Try doing this with any sufficiently complicated loop. Other than for enumerating a small array, you will almost never get all your data and instructions in the L1 cache. It just simply isn't big enough for instructions, data, and everything else your computer is doing at the time. You will get much better performance by having a larger, faster L2 cache so that when data needs to be swapped out of L1 it can be retrieved again very quickly. Look at the CuMine processors, which could halve the L2 cache, run at core speed and still maintain the same performance as their 1/2 speed Katmai counterparts.
The difference between a loop in the L1 and a loop in the L2 is STAGGERING! Try benchmarking for x for y compared to for y for x and you will see the difference. A larger L1 cache should make an immediate difference in performance
I agree with you that L1 is faster than L2, but there are a couple of considerations to take into account. First, L1 cache is a very expensive and lucrative asset, on-die L2 is cheaper and not terribly much slower. You could get similar price/performance with a smaller L1 and a much larger on-die L2. Second, Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you make the L1 cache too large, then you start slowing things down and end up with an L1 cache that has the same latency as it's L2 couterpart. Then you are back at square one. You need to find a balance between your L1/L2 caches so you don't hit this problem. One of the major factors in finding this balance is bringing the L2 cache to processor speeds, and putting it on the die. Besides, how much closer is the L1 cache compared to the L2 cache when they are both on the die, really...
1. When porting an application from Windows to the Linux world, I would assume that porting OpenGL code would be more straightforward than DirectX code (at least for the 3D-engine games). Has there been any thought to Loki producing an API that can replace DirectX on Linux, so that any game which uses the DirectX API could merely be recompiled using these new libraries, instead of the Microsoft supplied ones. (I don't just mean DirectDraw, but DirectSound/Input/etc).
2. Do you think that porting games from the Windows world to the Linux world places your developers in a good position to create original games directly for Linux, or are different skillsets involved?
I think larger L1 cache will compensate it. BTW - it's strange how people only keep in mind L2 cache when talking about caches. Considering that L1 cache does 90% (or so) of the speeding job.
Not sure where you are getting your numbers on this one, but keep in mind that no matter how fast the L1 cache is ([almost?] always the same speed as the processor), the L2 cache has to feed it. So if you figure a 128K L1 cache running @1GHz, and a 256K L2 cache running @333MHz, you can see where the problem comes in. Unless the entire application (read _very_ unlikely) can fit in the L1 cache, not even counting the OS operations/data, then you will see a significant slowdown as compared to a full speed L2 cache. What everyone shouldn't forget is how memory works, even if it isn't used more than once, each piece of data has to travel through each type of memory (main->L2->L1) before it can be processed.
Just my 2c. The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
I was just saying this on Ars yesterday. I remember those little machines quite fondly. I remember spending hours typing/porting programs to TI-BASIC, then storing 'em on a rigged up tape recorder...
I got to the part where the crap starts flying at you from both directions. Parsec had to be one of the greatest games out at the time... I hope this one does it justice.
"Microsoft announced today that they would be releasing their newest version of their Single Instance Store innovation. It incorporates a new and improved hashing algorithm which will save 85-95% of disk space on servers.
In related news, users of the original Single Instance Store (SIS) technology were astonished to find out that due to a bug in the "signature" calculation algorithm, the software was combining 80-90% of the files on the disk into a single file, rather than just combining equivalent files. This seems to have been due to the algorithm being accidentally combined with their "troubleshooting" algorithm, another of Microsoft's innovations. It seems that instead of linking identical files, the original SIS technology was linking all files which contained or caused errors. More as the story develops."
Am I the only one who sees the affects on software developers in this whole scenario. We are the perverbial "bad guys" with consumers already. It scares me quite badly that a law like this could pass. What are the chances that any small software development house will get started once this law has passed? After all, who is going to buy this new program, which has no guarantees of functionality, when they can purchase a M$ product, that while having numerous bugs, has been proven to work correctly most of the time.
Wake up everyone, companies like M$ don't want this law to pass so they can make crappy software, they want it to pass because it essentially eliminates their competition! As developers, we need to protect our investment (training/experience/etc), we cannot allow laws like this to further marr our reputation with the American public!
Sorry, got a little carried away, but no one seems to look at from a developers prospective...
Announcing and demoing a CPU is always the first step in the release process. They have now proved they can do it, and will work on refining the process and producing these things in bulk.
This is not purely a marketing ploy, when Intel "announces" their new Willamette processor, no silicon, no actual product, now that is a marketing ploy. What company do you know that doesn't advertise its products before they are released?
I believe that the free flow of information would lead to possibly the greatest evolution yet for the human species. But I am not willing to take that step if the casualities are going to be too high. If the only people who can make the evolution are the tech-saavy (i.e. Slashdotters:)), then we aren't ready yet. We need to be sure that we don't widen the already gaping hole between the technically illiterate and the technically fluent.
I would love to see an Internet unhindered by idealogies, government control and regional partitioning, unfortunately I don't see this happening, too many governments have already placed or are placing restrictions. The only thing that can stop this viscious cycle is the education of the populace. If the voters/citizens refuse to accept this type of restriction, then it can be prevented.
This should be a call to action for all those tech-saavy people. Participate with your local schools, hold free seminars for people who are computer illiterate, visit inner-city schools and donate your old computers (or new one's if you've got the money). The evolution must begin in the schools and neighborhoods or it will never be successful. Education is key, with education laws like DMCA and UCITA would never have passed in the first place. Bitchin' about it on/., while relieving, does nothing to stem the tide of ignorance (== lack-of-knowledge != stupidity).
<sidenote> This article points out a whole lot of interesting issues. One thing I would like to mention, is that while OSS is becoming a viable commercial model, it has a ways to go, probably more in mindshare than in factual/real terms. It is still a whole lot easier to make money by selling a proprietary product than it is to make money developing OSS, especially if said product would have the same reliability, maintainability, etc. </sidenote>
Hi all, I have long been wondering about this, and I may have missed its explanation on the Transmeta website, everyone here is talking about Crusoe and its x86 emulation, as well as the possiblity of emulating other architectures. This is all fine and dandy, but I have another question:
What about the filesystems? Even if the Crusoe could emulate all x86 instructions, it will still be prevented from running more than one type of filesystem. Unless the code morphing includes translations from all types of filesystems to one generic filesystem (I would imagine this would be a _huge_ performance problem).
You'll have to excuse my question, I may just be too tired to realize the obvious answer...
Slashdot Mirror
I would have to agree with most of this assessment. But, I think that the blame can be placed squarely on the Video/Sound/CPU manufacturers. After all, if games were just fun to play and didn't include the latest whiz-bang features, then how would they sell their products? I think developers are getting swamped by trying to create games which utilize these new features and not spending enough time making games which are fun to play.
:) )
.02c
TheJet
That is one of the reasons why I was actually pleased with Blizzards Diablo II release. Yes, it was late, yes it has problems, but YES IT'S D@MN ADDICTING!! They didn't worry about making the latest-greatest-fancy-schmancy-graphics. But look what happened, the first thing you heard from everyone (after "f'n Battle.Net") was one of:
"These graphics blow!"
"Why is this at 640x480?"
"How come I can't connect to Battle.Net?" (OK, I had to throw that one in
My point is that gamers are _never_ satisfied, and I think this is largely due to the fact that 3dfx/nVidia just convinced them to buy their latest vid-card, and they want to get their money's worth.
As someone who wants to break into this industry, I just hope that there are some good companies left when I get there. It seems like the good companies are dying faster than they can be created (***lamenting LGs death***). People aren't interested in good games, they want pretty ones.
My
The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
Doesn't Dell own stock in RedHat??
.2c
Just curious... Would Dell be forming alliances and other things if they weren't interested in making RedHat look good??
Dell And RedHat Alliance
Yet Another Dell/RedHat Alliance
I'm not trying to start a flame war, just trying to see if other people see connections... This is yet another example of why benchmarks suck!!
My
The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
I think this is a non-issue. The reason I say this is simple:
If I am a banner-ad company, I can find new ways to get the ad to your browser. I can have my clients run small proxies on their web-servers, I can change the size of my ad, I can do anything I really would like to do.
My point is that this feature is nice, and I would like to see it, but it merely makes showing ads more inconvenient. There are quite a few companies that are running their own ad campaigns, and are serving the images up from their own servers, so this wouldn't eliminate those ads. Not only that, but if you start getting too image-blocking happy, you end up with the web as it was 5 years ago ($shudder$).
I have some problems with the web as it is today, but would I want to take a step back that far?? No thank you.
The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
Thank You!! Finally someone understands...
...
No, that is what the "Lesser GPL" (formerly Library GPL) does. The (greater?) GPL both keeps improvements free, and prevents most use in non-open software (in fact, not just non-open, but non-GPL). You can not use GPL'ed code in a open source project that uses a non-GPL license. It's the same for MPL'ed code too.
By putting your code under the GPL, you are restricting someone else's decision about your code. If I create something, then put it under the GPL, I am denying anyone else from doing what they want with it. If they rewrite the thing, but include even a snippet of my code, they must include the source for the whole thing, or I can sue. Isn't the whole point of Open Source the free exchange of information?? If you are so worried about someone making a buck off your work, then why did you publish in the first place??
By using something like the BSDL, you can get your thoughts/ideas out there, and you don't restrict anyone's use of it. When I release something under the BSDL, I am offering other developers the same choice that I had, release it as commercial, keep it public, GPL-it, whatever. The point is that people who use the GPL are doing the same thing that closed source people are (albeit in the opposite direction).
A good analogy for this is the recent debate in Oklahoma about Evolution/Creationism. They first got textbooks to remove the "Evolution is fact, Creation is myth" in favor of "Evolution is a theory, just like Creationism". Then they turn around and want the textbooks to say "Creationism is correct, and Evolution is ". They have used the "open" argument to remove unwanted text from the books, and are now using the "closed" argument to eliminate their "competition".
The GPL is not the free exchange of information. It is as highly restricted as closed sourcing your project, except in the opposite direction.
Just my 2c. TheJet
The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
Interesting reply. I would expect that you have some reasons for being so harsh, maybe you didn't get enough coffee??
I will ignore the personal insults and get to what I believe was your point. Mostly that I "read AI on the back of the game box". Game Theory is and as far as I know will always be a valid portion of AI. I have taken my share of AI classes, and while I do not claim to be an expert in the field, I am not a brianless drone either.
I would love for you to prove to me as to why game theory (and it's application in any given computer game) fails to fall under the extremely broad category of AI. The entire purpose of the game engine is to simulate human interaction, as if you were playing against another human. I would wager that John Carmack (and I'm not claiming to know John or his thoughts) believes that the "artificial intelligence" that have been programmed into the Q3 bots would qualify as AI.
Now, I wonder, do you have a civilized response, or are you just trying to piss me off?
The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
For the past 40 years, AI has just been 10 years or so away. It's still just 10 years or so away. It's not getting any closer.
First off, there are many different definitions for AI. If you mean "a machine that is indistinguishable from a human" (at least without looking at it), then you may be right. However, I would say that AI in general has taken great strides in many areas. This is especially true for games.
I'll use this specific example: The Heroes of Might & Magic series. In the first game (HOMM I), the computer AI absolutely sucked, and you could easily beat it by hanging back and waiting for them to come to you. In the second and third installments, the AI became much more sophisticated. Now a unit may move only a portion of its allotted distance if moving all the way would put it in danger.
That is of course, a grossly oversimplified example, but things like game playing and expert systems have come a long way. Both of these are valid fields of AI, even if "human imitating" is what everyone thinks of when they say AI. So to say that AI hasn't made any significant strides in the past 40 years, is a oversimplification to say the least. Besides, do you honestly think that we are no closer today than we were 40 years ago?? (On a side note, I seem to remember little pamphlets they used to hand out in the early eighties about how we would all be flying around with Jetpacks by now, and colonizing the moon. Anyone think maybe they made a mistake on those?)
I think it is probably one of humanity's greatest moments of hubris to assume that we are what computers should strive to be.
Just my 2c
The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
Well, here goes, please hear me out before you start flaming...
1. The author makes a whole lot of claims, but fails to back up many of them with any real data. Netcraft is mentioned a couple of times, but other than that, there is no hard data.
2. The author is clearly biased towards UNIX over M$ products (you can basically discount his comments about SMP support, as everyone has pointed out that it is a bogus argument). Not only that, but nearly the entire article is about how great Linux is. I will be the first to say that Linux is a high quality OS, but there are also alot of things that Windows does well. I believe that his shots against W2K are unjustified and misplaced. Has any company/group released a bug-free/best performing OS on their first version. W2K had many problems to overcome, and considering the amount of code they had to merge in and make work on NT, I am actually surprised at the performance.
By the same token as he says to look at Linux when 2.4 comes out, the same can be said for Windows (or any other OS). Wait until SP2/3 comes out and you'll see marked performance increases. Anyone who builds a sufficiently complex system knows that it takes a while to iron out the wrinkles.
3. I use FreeBSD and Linux, and to say that you need to be a FreeBSD expert to run it as compared to Linux, is just plain wrong. FreeBSD takes no more monkeying around than Linux does to get it to perform well. As a matter of fact, I find the layout of some Linux dists (read RedHat) to be significantly harder to configure than FreeBSD.
The way that he dismissed the BSDs is IMHO shortsighted to say the least (with the exception of his comments on webserving). What he fails to mention is that FreeBSD can run any binary that runs on Linux. And there is a strong push to get a native port of Java (much like there was for Linux).
There are many other things I could say, but I'll leave it at that. The article was an interesting editorial, but it is just that, an editorial. The author clearly has biases and it should be taken as every other editorial is, with a grain of salt. It was nice of the author to promote interoperability, but it should have been done in a less editorial fashion.
My 4c (all little too long for just 2c)
The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
Thanks for the reply,
:).
I believe you are correct about the T-Buffer hardware "jitter" thing. I'll have to check 3dfx's documentation. My main point was that the card has to render the same scene multiple times (into each of it's n T-buffers), then merge the scene together to produce the effect. This is how it was shown in documentation I read, and in the demos that 3dfx gave (of course these were emulated).
I agree with you that Glide was needed at the time, but I would have rather seen them work with others, or with the OpenGL standards committee to get the job done. I realize (and don't think I ever said otherwise) that 3dfx was never a monopoly (although they acted like one, @ least in the 3D consumer market). And I agree that they did hold onto Glide longer than was good for the gaming/development community.
But, I don't think nVidia or ATI ever had a proprietary 3D API (please correct me if I'm wrong), I know of S3's (wasn't it much older than Glide??) and PowerVRs (I used to own one... yuck!). I didn't agree with PowerVR's work with PowerSGL either, it was just much cheaper than buying a voodoo1 when I got it
I don't think 3dfx's Glide was wrong for the time (and you're right, the hardware was quite amazing for the time period [jeesh! not too long ago]), but the fact that it even began shows how short-sighted the entire 3D industry was at the time. Don't be mistaken, 3dfx (3Dfx at the time) wanted to become the M$ of 3D, lucky for us that they failed.
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Two thoughts on this...
First, what if you write the whole thing around a rectangular rod (i.e. elongated cube): Take each four-letter combination and write it vertically, then match up the vertical sections, then look at each section and rewrite it in whatever direction makes the text readable. This could then be encrypted using standard replacement techniques. Has anyone done a count on whether each type of character has the same number of occurrences in the cipher??
Second, I had flashbacks of an old 3-2-1-Contact episode where they wrote a code around a broomstick, i.e. wrap the paper around a broomstick, then write the message across it, then unravel the paper and transcribe the character pattern. Then you tell your friend how far apart the letters should be and what size broomstick you used and they can decode the message by reversing what you did...
Just my 2c
The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
The Voodoo5 has a feature 3dfx calls the "T-Buffer", basically an accumulation buffer which can also be used for Full Screen Anti-Aliasing, Motion Blur, Soft Shadows, and Soft Reflections. All effects require the software to support the feature, except for anti-aliasing, which can be done automatically.
This is all fine and dandy, but this is hardly hardware support for things like depth of field. It requires that you render the scene n-times just to achieve a single frame. Real hardware support (for depth of field) would allow you to specify the focal length and the hardware would automatically blur non-focussed areas automatically.
While the 3dfx "T-Buffer" affects are nice, I can't imagine developers using them, since it would lock the developers into certain hardware (again!). This is something that I thought was insane when Glide first came around. These type of proprietary extensions are exactly why I have never and will never buy 3dfx-only games or 3dfx video cards. You said it above, "basically an accumulation buffer", instead of using this type of thing, why not make an open extension to OpenGL/Direct3D to support these type of effects.
Full scene anti-aliasing is one of the few "new" features that 3dfx cards sport that I actually like, and that I think will be useful in future games.
Just my 2c
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Thanks... I needed that :)
Gotta love it.
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Have you ever actually played Diablo?? If you have then obviously you would know that you can shoot in far more than the four cardinal directions.
:)...
Also, if you've played any real amount then you would know that there is a fair amount of strategy to the game as long as you don't play below your skill level. I won't go into it here, but obviously you haven't played the game much.
If you don't like the game then say so, sure it isn't the classic RPG, but it does have RPG elements. It allows those who don't want to have to think about how much Charisma their player should have to gain entry to the genre. Sometimes RPGs get so embedded in themselves that they become impossible/unfun to play (read FFVIII). I love RPGs, and I have no problem with Diablo calling itself one. Now if Quake were to do the same
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Thanks for the reply. That is actually one of the better replies I've received. Sorry if I came off a little harsh. I am just sick of people spouting this stuff without having even an inkling of what goes into the process.
It at least looks like you thought about the post before posting.
The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
Second, the guy was according to the article a domain squat^H^H^H^Hpeculator. Is this a practice anyone here wants to advocate?? I personally think it is a disgusting practice, and is one of the problems with the existing domain naming system. Many smaller companies have been forced to take "less than optimal" names because of this practice.
Third, I'm surprised at this post. Clearly this isn't a case of the little guy getting squashed by the big evil empire. He still has the site, and he had all kinds of lawyers and other mumbo-jumbo on his side as well. Don't cry for "domainiac".
This kind of attitude is the reason I don't read
The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
First, let me preface this with the fact that I do not work for Blizzard (unless they want to hire me :))
It's almost amusing how they can spare staff to produce 70 minute soundtrack CDs, 24 minute DVD titles, a f*cking DnD based paper RPG, and a manual signed by the development team when they can't even get product out the door. I think a better use of developer time would be finishing off the code, not signing autographs.
This has got to be one of the most bone-headed comments I have heard in quite some time. Don't you realize that all this stuff (with the exception of the paper RPG, but I believe this was not developed by Blizzard anyway) had to all be made anyway?? How long does it take to compile the audio from 4 CDs and dump it onto one for everyone's listening pleasure. Do you want a game shipped without a manual (and how long does it take someone to sign their name)?? Do you think that the DVD movie is much different than the cut scenes from the game (probably including some that didn't make it into the game)??
It's comments like this that make the software industry what it is today. If more companies spent the time and energy to create excellent, nearly bug-free games (which Blizzard has an excellent history ot doing) the world would be a much better place. I am perfectly willing to wait for a game that works out-of-box, without having to download a patch before I can play the thing.
@!$$%#!, I hate this mentality, but I'll stop now.
The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
Well considering I'm still getting emails from Verisign about a company I worked for 2 years ago...
Seriously, Verisign has been notoriously bad at responding to anything, add that to an already aging NetSol and you have a doubly-slow, doubly-inept corporation.
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Are you kidding? The L1 cache is DAMN important...
I am well aware of the importance of the L1 cache. I would highly doubt that it accounts for 90% of the performance of the CPU however.
This means that sequential loops will run mostly in the L1 cache. The L1 gets fed basically once if you can keep all the inner data inside the L1.
Try doing this with any sufficiently complicated loop. Other than for enumerating a small array, you will almost never get all your data and instructions in the L1 cache. It just simply isn't big enough for instructions, data, and everything else your computer is doing at the time. You will get much better performance by having a larger, faster L2 cache so that when data needs to be swapped out of L1 it can be retrieved again very quickly. Look at the CuMine processors, which could halve the L2 cache, run at core speed and still maintain the same performance as their 1/2 speed Katmai counterparts.
The difference between a loop in the L1 and a loop in the L2 is STAGGERING! Try benchmarking for x for y compared to for y for x and you will see the difference. A larger L1 cache should make an immediate difference in performance
I agree with you that L1 is faster than L2, but there are a couple of considerations to take into account. First, L1 cache is a very expensive and lucrative asset, on-die L2 is cheaper and not terribly much slower. You could get similar price/performance with a smaller L1 and a much larger on-die L2. Second, Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you make the L1 cache too large, then you start slowing things down and end up with an L1 cache that has the same latency as it's L2 couterpart. Then you are back at square one. You need to find a balance between your L1/L2 caches so you don't hit this problem. One of the major factors in finding this balance is bringing the L2 cache to processor speeds, and putting it on the die. Besides, how much closer is the L1 cache compared to the L2 cache when they are both on the die, really...
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Coupla Q's:
1. When porting an application from Windows to the Linux world, I would assume that porting OpenGL code would be more straightforward than DirectX code (at least for the 3D-engine games). Has there been any thought to Loki producing an API that can replace DirectX on Linux, so that any game which uses the DirectX API could merely be recompiled using these new libraries, instead of the Microsoft supplied ones. (I don't just mean DirectDraw, but DirectSound/Input/etc).
2. Do you think that porting games from the Windows world to the Linux world places your developers in a good position to create original games directly for Linux, or are different skillsets involved?
Thanks
The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
I think larger L1 cache will compensate it. BTW - it's strange how people only keep in mind L2 cache when talking about caches. Considering that L1 cache does 90% (or so) of the speeding job.
Not sure where you are getting your numbers on this one, but keep in mind that no matter how fast the L1 cache is ([almost?] always the same speed as the processor), the L2 cache has to feed it. So if you figure a 128K L1 cache running @1GHz, and a 256K L2 cache running @333MHz, you can see where the problem comes in. Unless the entire application (read _very_ unlikely) can fit in the L1 cache, not even counting the OS operations/data, then you will see a significant slowdown as compared to a full speed L2 cache. What everyone shouldn't forget is how memory works, even if it isn't used more than once, each piece of data has to travel through each type of memory (main->L2->L1) before it can be processed.
Just my 2c.
The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
Sweet!!
I was just saying this on Ars yesterday. I remember those little machines quite fondly. I remember spending hours typing/porting programs to TI-BASIC, then storing 'em on a rigged up tape recorder...
I got to the part where the crap starts flying at you from both directions. Parsec had to be one of the greatest games out at the time... I hope this one does it justice.
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Arriving shortly on your local news ticker...
"Microsoft announced today that they would be releasing their newest version of their Single Instance Store innovation. It incorporates a new and improved hashing algorithm which will save 85-95% of disk space on servers.
In related news, users of the original Single Instance Store (SIS) technology were astonished to find out that due to a bug in the "signature" calculation algorithm, the software was combining 80-90% of the files on the disk into a single file, rather than just combining equivalent files. This seems to have been due to the algorithm being accidentally combined with their "troubleshooting" algorithm, another of Microsoft's innovations. It seems that instead of linking identical files, the original SIS technology was linking all files which contained or caused errors. More as the story develops."
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Am I the only one who sees the affects on software developers in this whole scenario. We are the perverbial "bad guys" with consumers already. It scares me quite badly that a law like this could pass. What are the chances that any small software development house will get started once this law has passed? After all, who is going to buy this new program, which has no guarantees of functionality, when they can purchase a M$ product, that while having numerous bugs, has been proven to work correctly most of the time.
Wake up everyone, companies like M$ don't want this law to pass so they can make crappy software, they want it to pass because it essentially eliminates their competition! As developers, we need to protect our investment (training/experience/etc), we cannot allow laws like this to further marr our reputation with the American public!
Sorry, got a little carried away, but no one seems to look at from a developers prospective...
TheJet
Announcing and demoing a CPU is always the first step in the release process. They have now proved they can do it, and will work on refining the process and producing these things in bulk.
This is not purely a marketing ploy, when Intel "announces" their new Willamette processor, no silicon, no actual product, now that is a marketing ploy. What company do you know that doesn't advertise its products before they are released?
TheJet
I believe that the free flow of information would lead to possibly the greatest evolution yet for the human species. But I am not willing to take that step if the casualities are going to be too high. If the only people who can make the evolution are the tech-saavy (i.e. Slashdotters :)), then we aren't ready yet. We need to be sure that we don't widen the already gaping hole between the technically illiterate and the technically fluent.
/., while relieving, does nothing to stem the tide of ignorance (== lack-of-knowledge != stupidity).
I would love to see an Internet unhindered by idealogies, government control and regional partitioning, unfortunately I don't see this happening, too many governments have already placed or are placing restrictions. The only thing that can stop this viscious cycle is the education of the populace. If the voters/citizens refuse to accept this type of restriction, then it can be prevented.
This should be a call to action for all those tech-saavy people. Participate with your local schools, hold free seminars for people who are computer illiterate, visit inner-city schools and donate your old computers (or new one's if you've got the money). The evolution must begin in the schools and neighborhoods or it will never be successful. Education is key, with education laws like DMCA and UCITA would never have passed in the first place. Bitchin' about it on
<sidenote>
This article points out a whole lot of interesting issues. One thing I would like to mention, is that while OSS is becoming a viable commercial model, it has a ways to go, probably more in mindshare than in factual/real terms. It is still a whole lot easier to make money by selling a proprietary product than it is to make money developing OSS, especially if said product would have the same reliability, maintainability, etc.
</sidenote>
Hi all,
I have long been wondering about this, and I may have missed its explanation on the Transmeta website, everyone here is talking about Crusoe and its x86 emulation, as well as the possiblity of emulating other architectures. This is all fine and dandy, but I have another question:
What about the filesystems? Even if the Crusoe could emulate all x86 instructions, it will still be prevented from running more than one type of filesystem. Unless the code morphing includes translations from all types of filesystems to one generic filesystem (I would imagine this would be a _huge_ performance problem).
You'll have to excuse my question, I may just be too tired to realize the obvious answer...
The Jet