You can't distribute a Microsoft-free Xbox binary and then say to people "Just Add Microsoft from your own Xbox binary!", because the process that signs the binary is the copyrighted software that Microsoft is objecting to.
Basically, if you can write your own software to sign a binary that an Xbox will accept, then you're golden. Unfortunately that requires breaking Microsoft's encryption keys...
As one of the Halo developers, I can tell you that nobody is going to beat it on the hardest difficulty using only the melee attack. There's just absolutely no way. There are levels full of enemies that are basically immune to melee. It's insane enough when you have all your weapons.:)
We use a variable number of texturing passes on the environment based on how many lights are shining on a surface - the minimum is four and it's easy to get even higher than eight on certain surfaces in a firefight.
No offense, but having worked with this architecture for a while now, I have to say that the NV2x approach isn't an attempt to hamstring the graphics industry. It's an attempt to raise the bar of hardware design and bring the industry to a new level of verisimilitude in graphics rendering. Criticising nVidia for being a monopoly because they have the technical smarts to develop a revolutionary rather than an evolutionary solution just doesn't make any sense.
With the programmability of the vertex and pixel shaders, graphics applications are now free to create a whole new engine architecture... one that's free from the idea of fixed-format vertex data but instead is purely representation-driven. Because you can pass any binary data that you want to the vertex shader, you no longer have to represent the properties of your surfaces in an implicit format whose characteristics are defined by the fixed capabilities of the hardware. Now that this programmability is available, you can encode surface data in a format that actually stores exactly what you want. The NV2x is the first hardware engine that I feel can be called a "GPU" in more than just name - its capabilities will allow application developers to craft graphics engines that just aren't possible on a card that is "dedicated to improving performance with current software" as you cite you'd like to see. ATI recognize this - witness their Pixel Tapestry technology for pixel shading.
NV2x is the same kind of advance over GeForce2 that the original 3dfx Voodoo cards were over the prevailing PowerVR and VIRGE chips back in (1997?). You didn't see anybody complaining that 3dfx were trying to lock people into their proprietary technology back then, for the simple reason that everyone recognised the potential that was inherent in the change of focus. It took a while for games to become "3D Card Required"... but I'm 100% certain that nobody wants to go back to Quake II-era rendering. The benefit to the application programmer and the consumer is obvious. NV2x may not be the winning solution in the new space that's opening up - but it's a damn good opening salvo.
To paraphrase your post: If you don't want to see the capabilities of 3D graphics engines advance beyond the current status quo, avoid the GeForce3. And miss out.
- Butcher
P.S. You'll be amazed when you see what we can do with this technology. This is a great time to be a game designer or game player.
I feel very sorry for whoever the network admin at shell-o-matic.net is. posting such a tantalising description on slashdot and linking to an obviously low-capacity site... it's going to be ugly.:)
- butcher
Back in the bad old days, I used to run Quake under Linux using svgalib - it had to be setuid root so that it could take over the console. Now that OpenGL support under Linux is approaching maturity, thank goodness this is no longer necessary. Every time Quake dumped core, I wondered if it was really wise for me to be running such a fragile setuid process.
Security and stability are closely linked, and the game industry has often been criticised for not focusing enough on either. With the unique challenges that a game running under Linux faces (multi-user environment, ability to snoop on what a process is doing, ease of writing network proxies or bots), what does Loki do to address these issues? What should game companies in general be doing? Have you got any anecdotes about security to relate? (I know there are some from Myth II!)
It's rather telling that id have released the source code to Quake free to the public before one of their original Quake-engine licensees has managed to ship.:)
Oh well. They only need to sell 2 million copies to recoup their development costs, as Todd Porter told us about six months ago.
I'm a PhD student in Computer Graphics. About 18 months ago I wrote a ray-tracer that we use for teaching purposes, as a research testbed, and for animation here.
It's based on a ray-tracer that is used for commercial animation by a company that's closely tied to our research lab (I couldn't use their actual source code, but had access to it while writing mine). It's quite easily capable of producing commercial-quality animation, if you know what you're doing. We are producing a short film (4 min) here which we hope to submit to the SIGGRAPH 99 Screening Room.
It will run on any Linux system using glibc; we use Red Hat 5.1. It has no interactive previewing; you run the ray-tracer and view the resulting output image(s) using a program such as XV. So, you'll need a video card and a monitor, but nothing special.
Incidentally, it's also GPL Library licensed.
Those interested may check out the Mirage web page, which has a download link from our anonymous FTP server.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't distribute a Microsoft-free Xbox binary and then say to people "Just Add Microsoft from your own Xbox binary!", because the process that signs the binary is the copyrighted software that Microsoft is objecting to.
Basically, if you can write your own software to sign a binary that an Xbox will accept, then you're golden. Unfortunately that requires breaking Microsoft's encryption keys...
As one of the Halo developers, I can tell you that nobody is going to beat it on the hardest difficulty using only the melee attack. There's just absolutely no way. There are levels full of enemies that are basically immune to melee. It's insane enough when you have all your weapons. :)
We use a variable number of texturing passes on the environment based on how many lights are shining on a surface - the minimum is four and it's easy to get even higher than eight on certain surfaces in a firefight.
- butcher
No offense, but having worked with this architecture for a while now, I have to say that the NV2x approach isn't an attempt to hamstring the graphics industry. It's an attempt to raise the bar of hardware design and bring the industry to a new level of verisimilitude in graphics rendering. Criticising nVidia for being a monopoly because they have the technical smarts to develop a revolutionary rather than an evolutionary solution just doesn't make any sense.
With the programmability of the vertex and pixel shaders, graphics applications are now free to create a whole new engine architecture... one that's free from the idea of fixed-format vertex data but instead is purely representation-driven. Because you can pass any binary data that you want to the vertex shader, you no longer have to represent the properties of your surfaces in an implicit format whose characteristics are defined by the fixed capabilities of the hardware. Now that this programmability is available, you can encode surface data in a format that actually stores exactly what you want. The NV2x is the first hardware engine that I feel can be called a "GPU" in more than just name - its capabilities will allow application developers to craft graphics engines that just aren't possible on a card that is "dedicated to improving performance with current software" as you cite you'd like to see. ATI recognize this - witness their Pixel Tapestry technology for pixel shading.
NV2x is the same kind of advance over GeForce2 that the original 3dfx Voodoo cards were over the prevailing PowerVR and VIRGE chips back in (1997?). You didn't see anybody complaining that 3dfx were trying to lock people into their proprietary technology back then, for the simple reason that everyone recognised the potential that was inherent in the change of focus. It took a while for games to become "3D Card Required"... but I'm 100% certain that nobody wants to go back to Quake II-era rendering. The benefit to the application programmer and the consumer is obvious. NV2x may not be the winning solution in the new space that's opening up - but it's a damn good opening salvo.
To paraphrase your post: If you don't want to see the capabilities of 3D graphics engines advance beyond the current status quo, avoid the GeForce3. And miss out.
- Butcher
P.S. You'll be amazed when you see what we can do with this technology. This is a great time to be a game designer or game player.
I feel very sorry for whoever the network admin at shell-o-matic.net is. posting such a tantalising description on slashdot and linking to an obviously low-capacity site... it's going to be ugly. :)
- butcher
Security and stability are closely linked, and the game industry has often been criticised for not focusing enough on either. With the unique challenges that a game running under Linux faces (multi-user environment, ability to snoop on what a process is doing, ease of writing network proxies or bots), what does Loki do to address these issues? What should game companies in general be doing? Have you got any anecdotes about security to relate? (I know there are some from Myth II!)
--
Chris Butcher
Code Monkey
Bungie Software
Oh well. They only need to sell 2 million copies to recoup their development costs, as Todd Porter told us about six months ago.
- Butcher
It's based on a ray-tracer that is used for commercial animation by a company that's closely tied to our research lab (I couldn't use their actual source code, but had access to it while writing mine). It's quite easily capable of producing commercial-quality animation, if you know what you're doing. We are producing a short film (4 min) here which we hope to submit to the SIGGRAPH 99 Screening Room.
It will run on any Linux system using glibc; we use Red Hat 5.1. It has no interactive previewing; you run the ray-tracer and view the resulting output image(s) using a program such as XV. So, you'll need a video card and a monitor, but nothing special.
Incidentally, it's also GPL Library licensed.
Those interested may check out the Mirage web page, which has a download link from our anonymous FTP server.
- Chris Butcher
--