Calling them superheroes is a bit of a stretch - with the exception of Doctor Manhattan, they are really costumed vigilantes.
Most of the reviews I've seen so far rate the movie as mediocre, even fans. A couple of reviewers severely panned it, like Colin Covert of the Star Tribune - one star, contains the second worst sex scene in cinema (or something like that - maybe it was just this year...) followed by it also contains the worst (and others round out the top 5), quotes like "Who watches the watchmen? Nobody." Christopher Tookey of the Daily Mail, UK also laid into it, - "This despicable trash...," "Watchmen is unwatchable - a grotesque squandering of time, talent and technology," "Verdict: Hollywood at its woeful worst"
Mostly I've seen reviews suggesting it is just way too long and should have been edited down (the directors cut supposedly is pushing 4 hours, and critics still don't think they cut enough...)
Actually, Pluto still IS a planet - it was reclassified as a dwarf planet (note: NOT a minor planet, as many newspapers reported - see the wiki article about that). If you call Pluto a planet, what would you call Eris? It is larger than Pluto and probably the main reason Pluto was demoted in the first place.
Technically, there are 13 known planets in Earth orbit, including the 5 known dwarf planets. I, for one, bow down before my Makemake overlords.
A GPU upgrade without a CPU upgrade doesn't get the full effect, and vice versa.
with more and more graphics tasks being completely offloaded to the GPU, you often benefit from a new GPU even when the CPU isn't upgraded. Apple moved to the MXM platform for the iMacs a couple of years ago, but of course they made it so only their custom modules would work with it (so why move to a standard portable GPU slot in the first place?). My guess is that was a cost reduction effort on their part (i.e. their custom MXMs are compatible with their other custom MXMs). Actually adding/swapping out MXM cards is quite easy - certainly no harder than memory - I'd love to see an expansion slots for it in an iMac.
I generally replace CPU-motherboard-RAM at the same time on PCs, and disk drives, burners, PSU, case, and GPU asynchronously.
And as per the grandparent, I user service all my machines these days. Why? Because way back in 1997 I brought my 2 year old 7500/100 mac to an Apple authorized reseller when it failed to boot (this was before the Apple store), got charged $100 for a "60 minute diagnosis" which I'm sure took less than a minute since the machine didn't power up at all, and they wanted $650 to try a repair on it (actually, they wanted $750, but would discount my $100 diagnosis fee...). Their repair listed $500 for a motherboard and $250 for 2.5 hours of work. I said no, because I could buy the same machine used for about that same price at the time, and then since the thing was basically a brick, I went in with a multimeter and in 30 minutes I diagnosed that their diagnosis was wrong (they said it was most likely the motherboard, but the PSU may also be bad and a couple of minutes with a multimeter showed that the PSU was unquestionably having issues), then proceeded to order a new $50 Apple branded part online (the repair shop manifest listed this part at $400) and repair it myself - in about 20 minutes. I later sold the machine, and the owner (a teacher friend of mine) still uses it over a decade later.
Anyhow, I have very little respect for repair shops these days, but I suppose it's a lot like fixing your own car - it's a daunting task until you know what to do, then often it's trivial and you've got the equipment to do it, or it's a ton of work and better to bring it in. Still, I trust my own diagnosis more than the "pros" these days (because I DO know how to handle a multimeter).
ironically, the 8xxx mobiles have had exactly the same problem on many laptops (I've personally had two 8600Ms fail on my PC laptop, but I put an 8800GT in a friend's desktop and that is still running strong - and it gets abused GPU-wise much more than my laptop).
I still think nVidia's OpenGL support is better (especially new features), but since Apple provides the drivers on mac that is less of an issue than it is on PCs.
It was first programmed on a Russian DEC PDP-11 clone then ported to PC and everything else. Seems to me it was on consoles within months, not years, though. The arcade version seemed like it came out an eternity after it came out on consoles, but PC to console wasn't long.
Karateka, Prince of Persia, and Another World/Out of this World (the US name) were originally computer games, not console games, though the latter games made it to console. I'm not sure if Karateka ever was ported to a console (possibly an Atari, since I know it was on the ST computer). I'm fairly certain Karateka and Prince of Persia were originally Apple ][ and Another World and Flashback originally Amiga games.
Another World had a sequel called "Heart of the Alien" that I recall being exclusive to Sega Mega Drive, but it wasn't done by the original developer and was Sprite based. It actually is one of two games where I vastly preferred the graphics of the original game to the sequel (the other would be Rolling Thunder vs Rolling Thunder 2 - I admit, I actually only played the mega drive version of 2, but I saw screenies of the video game version running in MAME years later and it was similar).
It's a travesty that Pitfall didn't make the list - I knew people that bought 2600s just for Pitfall, which practically invented the platform genre as we know it.
And if you want influential how about Utopia on Intellivision - the grandfather of all Sim games?
Or B17 bomber on Intellivision (which added intellivoice... of course, it was hillarious southerner synthesized voice (toward the end of that - he didn't show any gameplay though, which I remember not being easy)...
If those handhelds use OpenGL (like the iPhone) they probably use OpenGL ES (embedded systems), which is a subset of OpenGL.
I'm venting a bit (ok, a lot) here, but I've found that Apple makes it extremely painful to write cross platform OpenGL code. First, they use a non-standard macro file for glext.h, but the framework prefers it over any you include even if you #include yours first, so you need to define a variable GL_GLEXT_LEGACY so it doesn't get included. Then Apple recommends you don't use macros at all (because you don't have to, and I commend Apple on that), but that requires coding #ifdefs for every OpenGL function that is called (because Windows and Linux need the macros), which is over 400 calls in the project I'm maintaining, and a new one for every non GLSL OpenGL function that gets added. For large projects like mine where there is no full time mac developer, it is almost impossible to maintain compatibility that way. To make matters worse, I've recently discovered code that compiled fine in X.4 and early versions of X.5 doesn't work at all with recent versions of X.5 (I'm still compiling on an X.4 box, so I found this out with complaints). I want to tear my hair out...
And the marketshare issue is dubious because all Intel macs can be set to dual boot Linux or Windows or run them in virtual machines, meaning you have access to DirectX on them (through native DirectX or WINE), which levels the PC playing field a bit. Wii has a much different interface than other platforms, so its titles tend to be exclusive or reworks. So the only real competitive advantage for writing OpenGL is for cross-platform release with the PS3, the weakest selling platform that many people buy just to be a blu-ray player. I'm also still waiting for Khronos to get the API modernized and streamlined and fix the performance hit from having everything mutable which was promised 2 years ago.
Another issue I have with OpenGL is companies like ATI not releasing many functions as EXTs even when the exact same functionality exists for DirectX (nVidia is much better at this than ATI). When you need to wait 3 years for a function that is essential to the project you're working on it get frustrating (especially one I've had on my nVidia box for 4 years). ATI has made a HLSL to GLSL converter, which makes porting shaders a breeze if you write both (especially with most sample code you can find being HLSL). With more and more code being written for shaders and easy conversion, writing to both APIs may continue to be the way to go for cross-platform.
OpenGL in a window can take a huge performance hit vs DirectX on Windows (the context switch is supposed to cost no more than 20%, but my Vista based laptop is more like 60%, probably due to shoddy drivers), so that can play a factor too (like for java browser games). This isn't really OpenGL's fault, it's Microsoft's, but it is a legitimate issue on Vista and Windows 7 (beta).
yes, Mipmapping is one technique to help prevent aliasing - it really is pre-computed anti-aliasing on the texture itself. Ripmaps provide better anti-aliasing (since they do perspective oriented scaling), but they also use a lot more memory.
For mipmapping, you may have something like this
using the convention 0x=hexidecimal (base 16, where letters A through F represent numbers 10-15 - FF below is the number 255 [15*16+15]) A=alpha (transparency - 0=fully transparent, FF means fully opaque), R=red, G=green, B=blue
the mipmap averages these for the next level (this is called isotropic filtering)
0xFF111119
then depending on the distance, either the higher resolution or lower resolution is used. There are a number of extensions to this idea that give better results (i.e. trilinear filtering, anisotropic filtering, ripmaps), but that is deep ending a bit.
Not really. I think textures are last or nearly last as far as disk use on most games - I think only models typically use less, although if you count shaders those typically take up less memory than anything, but they are really more like code.
Pre-rendered movies usually take up more space than anything else.
Video cards need to split the video ram between geometry and textures, so when it comes to textures, you've usually got 250-300MB of active VRAM to work with. A 512x512 32 bit texture takes up roughly 1MB (2 if mipmapped), and often modern games will use several textures for each pixel drawn (either through multitexturing or techniques like parallax mapping, normal mapping, etc)
Detailed terrain data can chew up disk space fast, as well - the smaller the scale, the more data needed. A developer I know is working on a MMORPG world that currently uses 16GB of terrain data alone. He's using quad-trees (it is much easier to write asynchronous paging for quad-trees because the data is uniform), but if he used something like oct-trees that size could rapidly increase.
Yeah, but it seems a little far out from what I remember - at least when I read the stories it seemed like it was very close to the Pillars of Hercules at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea (Straight of Gibraltar). If I remember correctly, they even found remnants of a city that was destroyed by earthquake there, however, the major problem with that hypothesis was that that particular city was attached to the Spanish peninsula and not an island. The other hypothesis I remember was that the island was Spartel, but that island sank much earlier than suggested (though it is in the right place).
Then again, the Canary Islands and Azores were suggested as possible locations and those are a bit far out, as well. For all we know, tectonic shifts may have pushed it around, as well.
I think the expansion is to address the real problem with UT3 - the lack of any innovation on the play level. I REALLY liked UT2004 - in fact, it is by far my favorite deathmatch game ever (with a close second being Battlefield 2). I've put in 12 hours on UT3, tops - it just lacks the variety its predecessor had, and some of the vehicles are extremely frustrating when capped by good players or even the AI (like the dark walker with its insti-kill beam weapon). I also wish the game would give a bit more feedback on how to do certain things, like capture that walker (which is dropped by a dropship, but I didn't know that until I'd played the map about 4 times).
Personally, I think EULAs have limited legal value, but it is possible to get railroaded into saying you did click that I Agree button since they might ask that in court and you would be under oath, with lying being perjury. However, you could still get away by saying you either don't remember who installed it, saying someone else installed it (if they did) or plead the 5th.
It doesn't take a reincarnated Johnny Cochran to see massive holes in EULAs - how can the I Agree button be legally binding? Since it is not a signature, there is no legal proof of who clicked it. In my state they can't even give speeding tickets with a photo-cop because the ticket needs to be issued to the driver, not the owner of the vehicle. How is this any different? Perhaps if the EULA records date, time, and user ID of the user that accepts the EULA it could be legally binding, but again, there's the photo-cop issue (I could have walked away for a minute and someone else clicked it).
In a workplace environment it is even worse - I have MS Windows and MS Office on my work PC, for instance - I never agreed to any EULA when either was installed because the operations people at my work installed it for me. Is it still legally binding for me if I didn't agree to it?
According to IMDB, ou-vay (Uwe as the Germans would say it) is booked for # Zombie Massacre (2010) (in production) (producer) # BloodRayne 3 (2009) (in production) (producer) # Sabotage 1943 (2009) (in production) (producer) # Max Schmeling (2010) (pre-production) (executive producer) # Janjaweed (2009) (pre-production) (producer) # The Storm (2009) (filming) (producer)
My guess is he is also directing most of those. Without looking up the profiles, I had heard Sabotage 1943 is based on Velvet Assassin and obviously BloodRayne 3 is based on the video game of that name, and I think Zombie Massacre is a Wii game... aside from that, I'm clueless. It's pretty sad when he's making movies of games so obscure even I haven't heard of them (or maybe he's branching out...)
The thing is, New York, like 48 other states have Use Tax laws, and therefore goods and services like this are taxable already and it is up to the consumer to pay this tax. What New York should do is take a hint from the RIAA and crack down on use tax violations and impose huge fines (it is up to 5 years in prison and $100000 fine for tax evasion) and see how long it takes before everyone is paying (or leaves the state, which I'd do...).
The reason Use Tax isn't collected by catalog and online companies is because every state has their own laws and some provide exemptions up to a certain amount (and how do you know if that person is above the exemption and taxes need to be collected?). Then states change these laws periodically, making it an even bigger headache. To make matters worse, counties/boroughs/etc are allowed to impose extra taxes for things like Stadiums that apply to Use Tax owed.
That said, New York may be teetering precipitously on double taxation, because I have not seen anywhere that this new tax would supersede Use tax (so technically, you owe both).
Seriously - my mom did exactly that - she'd not only pull the plug, she would remove it and hide it. Until I was about 12 I had a strict 1 hour a day computer or TV limit (I got to choose which). If I was on any longer than my allotted time (I got a 5 minute warning), mom would either remove the rabbit ears (TV), take the console (Atari 2600, Intellivision) or pull the plug and hide it (computer) and I would lose all privileges for that device for a week. I learned fast that there was no such thing as "just another minute."
Since when does a video game have a practical use? Most are enjoyed for a period of time and maybe revisited again later, but I can make that same argument for Movies, books, and even paintings. Of course you could argue Wii has a practical use because people exercise with it (I know several Physical Therapy people that use them), but you could argue that a painting gallery makes you walk while you enjoy it, too.
I think the real problem Video Games have is that they are not a single medium, but rather an amalgamation of mediums. Video Games often combine Visual arts, Music, and coding (which some consider an art). I've seen board games that combine all of these (yes, even music - I can't remember the game, but it had a battery operated tower that played ominous music and crackled thunder - Dark Tower or something like that), but I don't know anyone that considers board games art. Of course, I know people that don't consider writing art, either - they say prose can be artistic, but a novel is not art - in that respect, a game can be artistic, but it is not in of itself art.
Personally, I loved The Longest Journey, but I enjoy a laid back game once in a while and people like my brother-in-law who was weaned on action games and shooters wouldn't find any fun in it at all. I really enjoy adventure games while watching live TV for instance - when commercials hit I work on the puzzles for a bit. That sort of game tends to work much better than games that require your full attention all or nearly all the time (shooters, MMORPGS, etc).
I know what the DMCA says, but that conflicts with existing US Copyright law saying it is legal to create an archival copy of most legally licensed media - (specifically section 117). The recording industry hasn't been willing to fight that fight and with good reason - it is unlikely that they would win a DMCA battle vs that pre-existing copyright law, which is why sites like GameCopyWorld are still around (if the DMCA also specifically forbids publishing how to circumvent protection that would be a violation of free speech - another battle they wouldn't likely win, otherwise we'd have no porn or anarchist cookbooks).
What big media does to compensate is charge a "piracy fee" for all burnable media assuming that every one will be used for piracy, even in the days where they also license copies of music and movies with licensing allowing legal burning. Since these licenses preclude that the media is actually being used for piracy, they are in essence double dipping, and IMO, that could be construed as extortion.
I would think they HAVE to, at least in part. According to Microsoft, IE is a part of the operating system... (though the US settlement after appeal of that case basically permitted them to bundle anything they wanted and was a slap on the wrist). My guess would be background tasks like AV won't count, but if it brings up an application window (such as "run a full scan now") it will. I have a feeling IE will be counted as a separate application though, since it runs as a separate task.
The scary thing to me is, at work I run more browsers concurrently than the average user runs applications (though mostly due to needing to test web application server pages on various browsers).
not entirely the only solution - as I've mentioned above, GPL with exceptions is used with BSD already. For instance, MacOS X is built on top of BSD, but uses a modified GPL gcc to compile software. Apple provides the source for the modified gcc on their web site for free as per the requirements of the GPL (though you need to agree to the terms of the Apple Public Source License to get to it, I believe), but the exception allows for it to be used with/on proprietary software.
That is essentially what Linux and gcc are - if you make changes to them, you need to abide by the GPL for those changes, but they have an exception so that if you, say, build software with gcc and run it on Linux, you can do so commercially if you want to. For example, if you modify the Embedded Linux kernel to add a GSM stack, you need to release the source, but if you create the GSM stack as part of a standalone library or kernel plugin (like a modprobe driver), you don't.
In general, if you use any GPL license, you need to provide ALL source for your application unless it has an exception. GPL can be applied to libraries applications and plugins (but only as long as the parent application has the same license - in this case GPL)
LGPL allows a library to be linked dynamically with an application without requiring the application to provide source code. It applies ONLY to libraries and plugins to that library if the library itself is also LGPL (and you can't legally create an LGPL plugin for a proprietary app, which was brought up during vetting of the latest LGPL). LGPL explicitly forbids creating and using static libraries and the older LGPL 2 almost certainly forbids NeXT/Mac embedded frameworks (they are dynamically linked, but they would likely violate the license because they are technically part of the application bundle and not a separate library) - this was disambiguated in LGPL 3.0.
BSD is sorta free - if you use older code or license (pre-1999) as a basis, you will still be restricted by the BSD-old license requiring you to acknowledge the product contains software developed at UC Berkeley in all advertising materials.
zlib/libpng is another nearly restriction-less license - as long as you don't say you wrote it when you did not, don't remove the notification from the source, and add a notification that you've changed the source if you did, you can use it any way you want to.
Parallel programming isn't that hard if you design for it (in fact, I quite like working with threads - I keep a pool for concurrent file loading while the program is executing in my own code), but for the most part, games don't need it since they are usually throttled more by the GPU or memory bandwidth than the CPU. Most of the parallelism needed is in the GPU these days (in the form of programmable shaders).
Sony is putting in a huge gamble here - first of all, without MS as a partner, they will need to develop their own graphics drivers or use whatever proprietary drivers Intel develops for them, which will make porting to other platforms a pain (if possible at all). MS is the only platform that has announced they are writing real time raytracing drivers (in the DX11 API due in March).
Raytracing requires high memory bandwidth because it needs to be scene aware - that means Sony will likely be using the newest, most expensive memory there is (probably DDR4 or GDDR5 if Larrabee itself holds the scene). It is unlikely Larrabee can compete with dedicated rasterizers at rasterization, so raytracing is its only major plus.
Developers will need to rewrite core libraries or purchase them. Want soft shadows? Buy it or re-develop in house because it isn't a default ray tracing feature and requires casting more (expensive) rays.
So far, Intel's demos have been at fairly low resolutions (like 512x512), and while that is theoretically scalable by processor, 1920x1080 (1080i) is nearly 8x that size.
I personally feel either Intel demonstrated something to Sony that the rest of us haven't seen or they pulled the sheet over on Sony by focusing on things ray tracing does well and avoiding things it does poorly (like showing lots of specular and avoiding diffuse lighting).
That said, most consoles don't need true CPUs, so it is possible that Larrabee will be used more as a hybrid of some sort, handling ray tracing as needed (and maybe AI or sprite movements) and some other hardware handling rasterization. I'm mostly speculating, and to be honest if you want Wii-like graphics with shiny perfect sphere heads, tapping Larrabee for all graphics would probably be adequate (realistic, no, but as the Wii has proven, realism is overrated).
Slashdot Mirror
Calling them superheroes is a bit of a stretch - with the exception of Doctor Manhattan, they are really costumed vigilantes.
Most of the reviews I've seen so far rate the movie as mediocre, even fans. A couple of reviewers severely panned it, like Colin Covert of the Star Tribune - one star, contains the second worst sex scene in cinema (or something like that - maybe it was just this year...) followed by it also contains the worst (and others round out the top 5), quotes like "Who watches the watchmen? Nobody." Christopher Tookey of the Daily Mail, UK also laid into it, - "This despicable trash...," "Watchmen is unwatchable - a grotesque squandering of time, talent and technology," "Verdict: Hollywood at its woeful worst"
Mostly I've seen reviews suggesting it is just way too long and should have been edited down (the directors cut supposedly is pushing 4 hours, and critics still don't think they cut enough...)
Actually, Pluto still IS a planet - it was reclassified as a dwarf planet (note: NOT a minor planet, as many newspapers reported - see the wiki article about that). If you call Pluto a planet, what would you call Eris? It is larger than Pluto and probably the main reason Pluto was demoted in the first place.
Technically, there are 13 known planets in Earth orbit, including the 5 known dwarf planets. I, for one, bow down before my Makemake overlords.
with more and more graphics tasks being completely offloaded to the GPU, you often benefit from a new GPU even when the CPU isn't upgraded. Apple moved to the MXM platform for the iMacs a couple of years ago, but of course they made it so only their custom modules would work with it (so why move to a standard portable GPU slot in the first place?). My guess is that was a cost reduction effort on their part (i.e. their custom MXMs are compatible with their other custom MXMs). Actually adding/swapping out MXM cards is quite easy - certainly no harder than memory - I'd love to see an expansion slots for it in an iMac.
I generally replace CPU-motherboard-RAM at the same time on PCs, and disk drives, burners, PSU, case, and GPU asynchronously.
And as per the grandparent, I user service all my machines these days. Why? Because way back in 1997 I brought my 2 year old 7500/100 mac to an Apple authorized reseller when it failed to boot (this was before the Apple store), got charged $100 for a "60 minute diagnosis" which I'm sure took less than a minute since the machine didn't power up at all, and they wanted $650 to try a repair on it (actually, they wanted $750, but would discount my $100 diagnosis fee...). Their repair listed $500 for a motherboard and $250 for 2.5 hours of work. I said no, because I could buy the same machine used for about that same price at the time, and then since the thing was basically a brick, I went in with a multimeter and in 30 minutes I diagnosed that their diagnosis was wrong (they said it was most likely the motherboard, but the PSU may also be bad and a couple of minutes with a multimeter showed that the PSU was unquestionably having issues), then proceeded to order a new $50 Apple branded part online (the repair shop manifest listed this part at $400) and repair it myself - in about 20 minutes. I later sold the machine, and the owner (a teacher friend of mine) still uses it over a decade later.
Anyhow, I have very little respect for repair shops these days, but I suppose it's a lot like fixing your own car - it's a daunting task until you know what to do, then often it's trivial and you've got the equipment to do it, or it's a ton of work and better to bring it in. Still, I trust my own diagnosis more than the "pros" these days (because I DO know how to handle a multimeter).
ironically, the 8xxx mobiles have had exactly the same problem on many laptops (I've personally had two 8600Ms fail on my PC laptop, but I put an 8800GT in a friend's desktop and that is still running strong - and it gets abused GPU-wise much more than my laptop).
I still think nVidia's OpenGL support is better (especially new features), but since Apple provides the drivers on mac that is less of an issue than it is on PCs.
It was first programmed on a Russian DEC PDP-11 clone then ported to PC and everything else. Seems to me it was on consoles within months, not years, though. The arcade version seemed like it came out an eternity after it came out on consoles, but PC to console wasn't long.
Karateka, Prince of Persia, and Another World/Out of this World (the US name) were originally computer games, not console games, though the latter games made it to console. I'm not sure if Karateka ever was ported to a console (possibly an Atari, since I know it was on the ST computer). I'm fairly certain Karateka and Prince of Persia were originally Apple ][ and Another World and Flashback originally Amiga games.
Another World had a sequel called "Heart of the Alien" that I recall being exclusive to Sega Mega Drive, but it wasn't done by the original developer and was Sprite based. It actually is one of two games where I vastly preferred the graphics of the original game to the sequel (the other would be Rolling Thunder vs Rolling Thunder 2 - I admit, I actually only played the mega drive version of 2, but I saw screenies of the video game version running in MAME years later and it was similar).
It's a travesty that Pitfall didn't make the list - I knew people that bought 2600s just for Pitfall, which practically invented the platform genre as we know it.
And if you want influential how about Utopia on Intellivision - the grandfather of all Sim games?
Or B17 bomber on Intellivision (which added intellivoice... of course, it was hillarious southerner synthesized voice (toward the end of that - he didn't show any gameplay though, which I remember not being easy)...
If those handhelds use OpenGL (like the iPhone) they probably use OpenGL ES (embedded systems), which is a subset of OpenGL.
I'm venting a bit (ok, a lot) here, but I've found that Apple makes it extremely painful to write cross platform OpenGL code. First, they use a non-standard macro file for glext.h, but the framework prefers it over any you include even if you #include yours first, so you need to define a variable GL_GLEXT_LEGACY so it doesn't get included. Then Apple recommends you don't use macros at all (because you don't have to, and I commend Apple on that), but that requires coding #ifdefs for every OpenGL function that is called (because Windows and Linux need the macros), which is over 400 calls in the project I'm maintaining, and a new one for every non GLSL OpenGL function that gets added. For large projects like mine where there is no full time mac developer, it is almost impossible to maintain compatibility that way. To make matters worse, I've recently discovered code that compiled fine in X.4 and early versions of X.5 doesn't work at all with recent versions of X.5 (I'm still compiling on an X.4 box, so I found this out with complaints). I want to tear my hair out...
And the marketshare issue is dubious because all Intel macs can be set to dual boot Linux or Windows or run them in virtual machines, meaning you have access to DirectX on them (through native DirectX or WINE), which levels the PC playing field a bit. Wii has a much different interface than other platforms, so its titles tend to be exclusive or reworks. So the only real competitive advantage for writing OpenGL is for cross-platform release with the PS3, the weakest selling platform that many people buy just to be a blu-ray player. I'm also still waiting for Khronos to get the API modernized and streamlined and fix the performance hit from having everything mutable which was promised 2 years ago.
Another issue I have with OpenGL is companies like ATI not releasing many functions as EXTs even when the exact same functionality exists for DirectX (nVidia is much better at this than ATI). When you need to wait 3 years for a function that is essential to the project you're working on it get frustrating (especially one I've had on my nVidia box for 4 years). ATI has made a HLSL to GLSL converter, which makes porting shaders a breeze if you write both (especially with most sample code you can find being HLSL). With more and more code being written for shaders and easy conversion, writing to both APIs may continue to be the way to go for cross-platform.
OpenGL in a window can take a huge performance hit vs DirectX on Windows (the context switch is supposed to cost no more than 20%, but my Vista based laptop is more like 60%, probably due to shoddy drivers), so that can play a factor too (like for java browser games). This isn't really OpenGL's fault, it's Microsoft's, but it is a legitimate issue on Vista and Windows 7 (beta).
yes, Mipmapping is one technique to help prevent aliasing - it really is pre-computed anti-aliasing on the texture itself. Ripmaps provide better anti-aliasing (since they do perspective oriented scaling), but they also use a lot more memory.
For mipmapping, you may have something like this
using the convention 0x=hexidecimal (base 16, where letters A through F represent numbers 10-15 - FF below is the number 255 [15*16+15]) A=alpha (transparency - 0=fully transparent, FF means fully opaque), R=red, G=green, B=blue
0xAARRGGBB
0xFF000033 0xFF000000
0xFF444444 0xFF000000
the mipmap averages these for the next level (this is called isotropic filtering)
0xFF111119
then depending on the distance, either the higher resolution or lower resolution is used. There are a number of extensions to this idea that give better results (i.e. trilinear filtering, anisotropic filtering, ripmaps), but that is deep ending a bit.
error correction - 1 1/3MB if mipmapped. I was thinking of normal maps, not mipmaps when I typed that.
Not really. I think textures are last or nearly last as far as disk use on most games - I think only models typically use less, although if you count shaders those typically take up less memory than anything, but they are really more like code.
Pre-rendered movies usually take up more space than anything else.
Video cards need to split the video ram between geometry and textures, so when it comes to textures, you've usually got 250-300MB of active VRAM to work with. A 512x512 32 bit texture takes up roughly 1MB (2 if mipmapped), and often modern games will use several textures for each pixel drawn (either through multitexturing or techniques like parallax mapping, normal mapping, etc)
Detailed terrain data can chew up disk space fast, as well - the smaller the scale, the more data needed. A developer I know is working on a MMORPG world that currently uses 16GB of terrain data alone. He's using quad-trees (it is much easier to write asynchronous paging for quad-trees because the data is uniform), but if he used something like oct-trees that size could rapidly increase.
Yeah, but it seems a little far out from what I remember - at least when I read the stories it seemed like it was very close to the Pillars of Hercules at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea (Straight of Gibraltar). If I remember correctly, they even found remnants of a city that was destroyed by earthquake there, however, the major problem with that hypothesis was that that particular city was attached to the Spanish peninsula and not an island. The other hypothesis I remember was that the island was Spartel, but that island sank much earlier than suggested (though it is in the right place).
Then again, the Canary Islands and Azores were suggested as possible locations and those are a bit far out, as well. For all we know, tectonic shifts may have pushed it around, as well.
I think the expansion is to address the real problem with UT3 - the lack of any innovation on the play level. I REALLY liked UT2004 - in fact, it is by far my favorite deathmatch game ever (with a close second being Battlefield 2). I've put in 12 hours on UT3, tops - it just lacks the variety its predecessor had, and some of the vehicles are extremely frustrating when capped by good players or even the AI (like the dark walker with its insti-kill beam weapon). I also wish the game would give a bit more feedback on how to do certain things, like capture that walker (which is dropped by a dropship, but I didn't know that until I'd played the map about 4 times).
Personally, I think EULAs have limited legal value, but it is possible to get railroaded into saying you did click that I Agree button since they might ask that in court and you would be under oath, with lying being perjury. However, you could still get away by saying you either don't remember who installed it, saying someone else installed it (if they did) or plead the 5th.
It doesn't take a reincarnated Johnny Cochran to see massive holes in EULAs - how can the I Agree button be legally binding? Since it is not a signature, there is no legal proof of who clicked it. In my state they can't even give speeding tickets with a photo-cop because the ticket needs to be issued to the driver, not the owner of the vehicle. How is this any different?
Perhaps if the EULA records date, time, and user ID of the user that accepts the EULA it could be legally binding, but again, there's the photo-cop issue (I could have walked away for a minute and someone else clicked it).
In a workplace environment it is even worse - I have MS Windows and MS Office on my work PC, for instance - I never agreed to any EULA when either was installed because the operations people at my work installed it for me. Is it still legally binding for me if I didn't agree to it?
You're kidding, right? (that's a joke ;)
According to IMDB, ou-vay (Uwe as the Germans would say it) is booked for
# Zombie Massacre (2010) (in production) (producer)
# BloodRayne 3 (2009) (in production) (producer)
# Sabotage 1943 (2009) (in production) (producer)
# Max Schmeling (2010) (pre-production) (executive producer)
# Janjaweed (2009) (pre-production) (producer)
# The Storm (2009) (filming) (producer)
My guess is he is also directing most of those. Without looking up the profiles, I had heard Sabotage 1943 is based on Velvet Assassin and obviously BloodRayne 3 is based on the video game of that name, and I think Zombie Massacre is a Wii game... aside from that, I'm clueless. It's pretty sad when he's making movies of games so obscure even I haven't heard of them (or maybe he's branching out...)
The thing is, New York, like 48 other states have Use Tax laws, and therefore goods and services like this are taxable already and it is up to the consumer to pay this tax. What New York should do is take a hint from the RIAA and crack down on use tax violations and impose huge fines (it is up to 5 years in prison and $100000 fine for tax evasion) and see how long it takes before everyone is paying (or leaves the state, which I'd do...).
The reason Use Tax isn't collected by catalog and online companies is because every state has their own laws and some provide exemptions up to a certain amount (and how do you know if that person is above the exemption and taxes need to be collected?). Then states change these laws periodically, making it an even bigger headache. To make matters worse, counties/boroughs/etc are allowed to impose extra taxes for things like Stadiums that apply to Use Tax owed.
That said, New York may be teetering precipitously on double taxation, because I have not seen anywhere that this new tax would supersede Use tax (so technically, you owe both).
mom? is that you?
Seriously - my mom did exactly that - she'd not only pull the plug, she would remove it and hide it. Until I was about 12 I had a strict 1 hour a day computer or TV limit (I got to choose which). If I was on any longer than my allotted time (I got a 5 minute warning), mom would either remove the rabbit ears (TV), take the console (Atari 2600, Intellivision) or pull the plug and hide it (computer) and I would lose all privileges for that device for a week. I learned fast that there was no such thing as "just another minute."
Since when does a video game have a practical use? Most are enjoyed for a period of time and maybe revisited again later, but I can make that same argument for Movies, books, and even paintings. Of course you could argue Wii has a practical use because people exercise with it (I know several Physical Therapy people that use them), but you could argue that a painting gallery makes you walk while you enjoy it, too.
I think the real problem Video Games have is that they are not a single medium, but rather an amalgamation of mediums. Video Games often combine Visual arts, Music, and coding (which some consider an art). I've seen board games that combine all of these (yes, even music - I can't remember the game, but it had a battery operated tower that played ominous music and crackled thunder - Dark Tower or something like that), but I don't know anyone that considers board games art. Of course, I know people that don't consider writing art, either - they say prose can be artistic, but a novel is not art - in that respect, a game can be artistic, but it is not in of itself art.
Personally, I loved The Longest Journey, but I enjoy a laid back game once in a while and people like my brother-in-law who was weaned on action games and shooters wouldn't find any fun in it at all. I really enjoy adventure games while watching live TV for instance - when commercials hit I work on the puzzles for a bit. That sort of game tends to work much better than games that require your full attention all or nearly all the time (shooters, MMORPGS, etc).
I know what the DMCA says, but that conflicts with existing US Copyright law saying it is legal to create an archival copy of most legally licensed media - (specifically section 117). The recording industry hasn't been willing to fight that fight and with good reason - it is unlikely that they would win a DMCA battle vs that pre-existing copyright law, which is why sites like GameCopyWorld are still around (if the DMCA also specifically forbids publishing how to circumvent protection that would be a violation of free speech - another battle they wouldn't likely win, otherwise we'd have no porn or anarchist cookbooks).
What big media does to compensate is charge a "piracy fee" for all burnable media assuming that every one will be used for piracy, even in the days where they also license copies of music and movies with licensing allowing legal burning. Since these licenses preclude that the media is actually being used for piracy, they are in essence double dipping, and IMO, that could be construed as extortion.
I would think they HAVE to, at least in part. According to Microsoft, IE is a part of the operating system... (though the US settlement after appeal of that case basically permitted them to bundle anything they wanted and was a slap on the wrist). My guess would be background tasks like AV won't count, but if it brings up an application window (such as "run a full scan now") it will. I have a feeling IE will be counted as a separate application though, since it runs as a separate task.
The scary thing to me is, at work I run more browsers concurrently than the average user runs applications (though mostly due to needing to test web application server pages on various browsers).
not entirely the only solution - as I've mentioned above, GPL with exceptions is used with BSD already. For instance, MacOS X is built on top of BSD, but uses a modified GPL gcc to compile software. Apple provides the source for the modified gcc on their web site for free as per the requirements of the GPL (though you need to agree to the terms of the Apple Public Source License to get to it, I believe), but the exception allows for it to be used with/on proprietary software.
That is essentially what Linux and gcc are - if you make changes to them, you need to abide by the GPL for those changes, but they have an exception so that if you, say, build software with gcc and run it on Linux, you can do so commercially if you want to. For example, if you modify the Embedded Linux kernel to add a GSM stack, you need to release the source, but if you create the GSM stack as part of a standalone library or kernel plugin (like a modprobe driver), you don't.
In general, if you use any GPL license, you need to provide ALL source for your application unless it has an exception. GPL can be applied to libraries applications and plugins (but only as long as the parent application has the same license - in this case GPL)
LGPL allows a library to be linked dynamically with an application without requiring the application to provide source code. It applies ONLY to libraries and plugins to that library if the library itself is also LGPL (and you can't legally create an LGPL plugin for a proprietary app, which was brought up during vetting of the latest LGPL). LGPL explicitly forbids creating and using static libraries and the older LGPL 2 almost certainly forbids NeXT/Mac embedded frameworks (they are dynamically linked, but they would likely violate the license because they are technically part of the application bundle and not a separate library) - this was disambiguated in LGPL 3.0.
BSD is sorta free - if you use older code or license (pre-1999) as a basis, you will still be restricted by the BSD-old license requiring you to acknowledge the product contains software developed at UC Berkeley in all advertising materials.
zlib/libpng is another nearly restriction-less license - as long as you don't say you wrote it when you did not, don't remove the notification from the source, and add a notification that you've changed the source if you did, you can use it any way you want to.
Parallel programming isn't that hard if you design for it (in fact, I quite like working with threads - I keep a pool for concurrent file loading while the program is executing in my own code), but for the most part, games don't need it since they are usually throttled more by the GPU or memory bandwidth than the CPU. Most of the parallelism needed is in the GPU these days (in the form of programmable shaders).
Sony is putting in a huge gamble here - first of all, without MS as a partner, they will need to develop their own graphics drivers or use whatever proprietary drivers Intel develops for them, which will make porting to other platforms a pain (if possible at all). MS is the only platform that has announced they are writing real time raytracing drivers (in the DX11 API due in March).
Raytracing requires high memory bandwidth because it needs to be scene aware - that means Sony will likely be using the newest, most expensive memory there is (probably DDR4 or GDDR5 if Larrabee itself holds the scene). It is unlikely Larrabee can compete with dedicated rasterizers at rasterization, so raytracing is its only major plus.
Developers will need to rewrite core libraries or purchase them. Want soft shadows? Buy it or re-develop in house because it isn't a default ray tracing feature and requires casting more (expensive) rays.
So far, Intel's demos have been at fairly low resolutions (like 512x512), and while that is theoretically scalable by processor, 1920x1080 (1080i) is nearly 8x that size.
I personally feel either Intel demonstrated something to Sony that the rest of us haven't seen or they pulled the sheet over on Sony by focusing on things ray tracing does well and avoiding things it does poorly (like showing lots of specular and avoiding diffuse lighting).
That said, most consoles don't need true CPUs, so it is possible that Larrabee will be used more as a hybrid of some sort, handling ray tracing as needed (and maybe AI or sprite movements) and some other hardware handling rasterization. I'm mostly speculating, and to be honest if you want Wii-like graphics with shiny perfect sphere heads, tapping Larrabee for all graphics would probably be adequate (realistic, no, but as the Wii has proven, realism is overrated).
that's because 9 out of 10 statistics are made up 73% of the time.