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| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=22292 |  DemBones79 (255) Nov 09, 2009 - 03:41 pm
| I still have a feeling that Fermi is going to be more like the original GeForce 256. The first GeForce was slower than its competitors, but what it offered (hardware transformation and lighting, 32-bit color with a minimal performance hit) were things that enthusiasts and those who needed to be on the bleeding edge of tech clamored for.
The GeForce was a success with developers and gave the first glimpse into the future of 3D acceleration. But for non-hardware T&L accelerated games, it was a benchmark failure.
I don't see Fermi being much of a performance boost over previous architectures. If they can match the GTX 295 on a single chip, I'll be pleasantly surprised.
I can't wait to see what it can do, though! Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=22291 | DemBones79 (255) Nov 09, 2009 - 06:17 am
| I have yet to play the game. I have a huge back catalog of games I need to work through first before I even consider plopping down any more money.
But from what I'm reading here, it seems that there may be some fond memories of old school games interfering with the reality of what kind of drawn out grind and twitch fests they truly were. I wish I could find a better term for this, but here goes:
Say, like me, you grew up on Super Mario Bros, Zelda, Sonic, Golden Axe, Metroid, Castlevania, Streets of Rage, etc. Have you gone back to play any of those old school games lately? Did you expect to get past world 3- and fail miserably? Did you find yourself quitting and going to play a "better" game?
I have. I thought it was just my skills at first, you know? Maybe I'd gotten rusty after all these years. And to an extent, I have. But after an hour or so of playing, I was starting to get my groove back. I remembered the old moves, some of the tricks, hidden paths, etc. But I still wasn't having any fun.
Old school games probably weren't as great as we remember. They relied as much, if not more, on simple to complex pattern memorization rather than skill. It was more about remembering which Bullet Bill would be intersecting with where you're standing when the ship deck is half screen height and the door finally scrolls into view. Where it was safe to stand and where it wasn't. Rarely were there obvious cues. Rarely did it have anything to do with us being smart or clever. It was all about how many times we failed before we figured out (and remembered) what we had to do and when.
So why did we put up with this nonsense? Well, I can't vouch for everyone, though I know I cover my friends and family with this statement: We put up with it because it was all we had. It was what we had to play. There really weren't that many choices out there. The medium wasn't even an eighth the size it is today.
Games have evolved since then, and we along with them. We have games based upon skill or based upon intelligence. We have games that can be won by knowing how the game works, what the rules are, and how to work them to our advantage. We don't have to memorize patterns anymore to get through.
And probably the biggest thing that works to our advantage overall, but to our disadvantage when it comes to enjoying old-school games again, is that we have so many more choices now. Where once we kept plugging away- despite our frustration- because we had no alternative, we now have a plethora of other games that may not be so infuriating.
I don't doubt that Jakub played the old games. I fully believe it and that he beat them and enjoyed them at the time. But I also believe that even the RPG has evolved since that time and that some of us expect a more refined experience than what we once had.
Maybe we have gone soft, lost our old skills. Maybe we've gotten spoiled by newer games that improved upon the formula. But the point of this pastime is to have fun, and if someone tries a game and doesn't find it to be fun, then I can't fault him or her for it. Jakub voiced his opinion and even backed it up with examples of how he formed that opinion. Whether you experience the same thing or not, if one person feels this way, chances are others do too.
By the way, a quick Google search will show you that Jakub is not alone in his opinions. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=22272 | DemBones79 (255) Nov 02, 2009 - 03:59 pm
| Here's an idea to help stimulate the Wii in this rank economy:
Bring back Player's Choice and drop the price of all the qualifying games. I mean, come on... Twilight Princess is still full price.
In most console generations, it's the games and the accessories that make all the money, while the console is a black hole. For the Wii, everything makes money. I think they might be able to afford a slight reduction in price.
Or am I crazy? Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=22213 | DemBones79 (255) Oct 14, 2009 - 12:21 pm
| As long as they look better than the current backlit screens. I still have my original DS because I prefer the color on its sidelit screens to the DSLite and DSi's backlit screens.
I can't quite nail down what it is, but the original's colors just look better to me. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=22197 | DemBones79 (255) Oct 07, 2009 - 03:28 pm
| First of all, 9/11 happened 8 years ago. Let that sink in for a moment. It's been 8 years. In two more years, it'll be a nice, even decade.
Some Americans may still be angry or upset over 9/11. I know I still get a little choked up when I really think about it. But we're not still living in fear. We're not talking about it at every break, hearing about it on the evening news, seeing it everywhere we go.
We've moved on.
This is just yet another group trying to get their name out in the public eye by objecting to something that they know is going to sell millions. They're little more than trolls. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=22193 | DemBones79 (255) Oct 07, 2009 - 04:29 am
| In my company, if you don't make plan, you don't get a bonus. Period.
Now if we could couple that philosophy with getting more big American execs doing the same thing, maybe our economy wouldn't have tanked so hard with so many layoffs. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=22160 | DemBones79 (255) Sep 24, 2009 - 08:00 am » Edited on Sep 24, 2009 - 08:01 am
| | While definitely applicable to those who have to write their own code, there is a lot of already available software that runs on CUDA. Couple that with the fact that Quadro chips are specifically engineered to provide the most precise calculations they can (as opposed to Intel's infamous Pentium I debacle). Depending on who Intel is targeting with Larrabee, it may not have the precision required by engineers of all disciplines, chemists, physicists, and other researchers. Finally, unless my memory is faulty- which I'll admit happens more often than I would like- I believe NVIDIA was touting the programmable nature of their cards and how engineers were using them for GP number crunching before CUDA came along. I believe researches were writing in shader language, but I could be wrong. It just seems to me I remember hearing about the cards being used first and the CUDA announcement was more of a "Look, we made it easier!" Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=22160 | DemBones79 (255) Sep 23, 2009 - 01:45 pm
| LORD ORION and pidge, I agree with you both, though in my case I've mostly been waiting to see how Larrabee will flop. :P I will admit, though, that since I heard it will have dedicated fixed-function processors in it for texturing and so forth, I feel a bit more optimistic about Larrabee's success.
In addition to pidge's comments, I also noticed that the animation of the flyer in the background is awfully choppy. You don't notice it as much with the water because the animation is so slow- it can afford to drop some frames and your mind won't perceive it as a problem. But that flyer skips and bounces across the sky.
Playable? Maybe. Competitive? No. Interesting? Hell yes! I'm excited to see how the dedicated graphics vendors are going to respond. But if the long, agonizing transition to hardware T&L is any indication, the transition to ray-traced graphics engines is going to be a painful process. Early chips are going to have to compete on both the ray-tracing front *and* the more traditional 3D engines. Not many people are going to want to buy a 3D card for gaming that can't play their current games, especially at the price premiums Larrabee is almost guaranteed to have. If it can perform on current gen games and is ready for next-gen tech, it'll be solid gold. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=22154 | DemBones79 (255) Sep 22, 2009 - 09:12 am
| What the hell are *you* smoking? Let's look at the flaws in your argument:
1- A console is designed to be played on a HDTV. At HDTV resolutions, both PS3 and 360 can handle both the framerate and AA acceptably.
2- We're talking about an MMO. With very few exceptions, MMOs do *not* have the sorts of graphics requirements that a FPS or RTS or even a SP-RPG does. Why? Accessibility. The more people who can play an MMO, the more money the company makes. As such, MMOs are designed to be able to run on middling hardware. With a console it gets even better because you only need to make it look good on one hardware platform. Make it look good and run smoothly on one console and you're guaranteed that every customer with the same console will get the same experience.
As far as I can see, that's a formula for success. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=22137 | DemBones79 (255) Sep 15, 2009 - 02:16 pm
| While the iPhone/iPod Touch are really cool, they still have one feature that really cripples them for a lot of users: iTunes. My fiance hates her iPod with a fiery passion, mostly because of iTunes. I simply use iTunes as a playlist creation and synchronization tool because I am not satisfied with iTunes' encoding abilities (yes, I actually own all of my music and rip it directly from the CDs using other software.)
Personally, I need more storage space than the Zune HD offers, as much as I would like to own one. The recent iPod Touch 64GB would be perfect, but the iPhone has yet to hit that. Maybe, if the rumors are true, when Verizon gets the iPhone, they'll have a 64GB version. At that point I'd happily replace my iPod. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=22121 | DemBones79 (255) Sep 11, 2009 - 09:25 am » Edited on Sep 11, 2009 - 09:32 am
| I'll admit openly that I am not a fan of ATI's products. However, if NVIDIA announced the same exact thing, I would still ask the same question: What about the framerate?
I have an OC'd 216-core GTX260. I love the card. But it has a hard time running some of my games at 1680x1050@60fps. Most can't make it past an average of 50fps.
Now I realize we're talking about a significantly faster graphics card here, but we're also talking about a resolution bordering on the ridiculous. At that resolution we're talking over 55MB of memory just for the framebuffer at 32-bit color. And that's without anti-aliasing (and I realize that some would point out that you won't need AA at that rez to which I still say BS).
I think another thing to point out is that even if it could run current-gen games at that resolution at 60fps, do you honestly think game developers would be content knowing that there's all that power "untapped". Until we achieve true photo-realism in games, you can either use all of that horsepower to render fast or to render pretty, but not both.
I think this technology would be wasted on gaming. I don't believe the chip is powerful enough to make it a playable reality for anything newer than 2-3 year old games. Instead, I think they should be targeting the CAD user, the 3D modeler, the digital content editors- people who can benefit from additional screen real estate, multiple windows, etc.
-edit- Okay, so I just watched the video. It is running pretty smoothly on Hawx though that can still be an OC'd multi-GPU setup. But I will give them credit for talking about productivity applications for this tech more than gaming. Either way, I'll still be interested to see what happens when it's actually released into the wilds. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=22042 | DemBones79 (255) Aug 20, 2009 - 04:27 am » Edited on Aug 20, 2009 - 04:28 am
| Actually,I bought my PS3 to play Bluray movies and for my PS1 and PS2 games that I kept. The PS3 does a great job upscaling them and that had me sold.
What I want to know is how they can draw any sort of logical conclusion from their evidence when they dropped backwards compatibility so short into the system's lifespan. The PS3 has had more time on store shelves without backwards compatibility than it did with backwards compatibility. Consumers aren't that stupid. If they know the console can't play PS2 games, why would they cite PS2 games as a reason to buy the PS3?
Stupid, stupid, stupid. I'm not saying I hate the PS3. I'm saying I hate Sony for totally mishandling the system from inception to now and probably beyond. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=22038 | DemBones79 (255) Aug 18, 2009 - 01:37 pm » Edited on Aug 18, 2009 - 01:39 pm
| | Ars Technica has some details about backwards compatibility... such as the fact that there is none. Kinda sad, really. I would love to give up my first-gen PS3, but I love having my backwards compatibility. So, until they confirm that it will work, I'll have to pass on what appears to be a much better system. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=22004 | DemBones79 (255) Aug 11, 2009 - 04:29 am
| Or he could be counting his chickens before they hatch. Does anyone even remember the software-rendered version of Unreal, besides me? It looked and ran like ass. How long has it been since Epic made a full-software rendering engine? A lot has changed and in order to achieve the same effects and overall quality that they have currently, they will have to program that all by hand. Without infringing on any patents.
Of course, if any two companies have the experience and the skill to pull it off, it's id Software and Epic. Maybe Crytek, but they're a newcomer. It's unclear how much of their success comes from a fresh perspective on current hardware APIs vs. the other two's long history of programming game engines.
No matter what, I think this return to the glory days will be a lot harder than Mr. Sweeney is anticipating. It sounds to me like he is suffering a bad case of gamer nostalgia. You know, that delusion that some old game or another was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Then you go and boot up your old system, load up the game, only to discover that it was absolute crap and wonder how you could have ever loved such a thing as a child. Probably mix in a little bit of "modern game wussification" too. That's where you remember being all hardcore on Super Mario Bros, making it through the whole game on 1 life. Then you try it now and you lose on 1-2, all because whatever degree of skill you had has become dulled from lack of practice and modern games that are far easier and hold your hand every step of the way. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=21978 | DemBones79 (255) Aug 04, 2009 - 04:20 pm
| No, see, this is one of those instances where time to market makes all the difference in the world. CUDA is here, now. It has already been adopted by thousands of research firms. Programming for CUDA can be done with a variant of C with special extensions. While I'm sure Larrabee will use a similarly easy programming interface, the almost 3 year headstart CUDA already has (and who knows how many more when Larrabee finally launches) is giving researchers plenty of experience with NVIDIA's offering. I doubt adding ray tracing to the existing library is going to set developers back by any significant degree of learning time.
If NVIDIA goes down, it will not be on the research front, which is where CUDA is aimed in the first place. It wasn't until recently that end users started seeing apps that could make use of the technology. Quadro cards have a stranglehold on the workstation market and their rep is well-deserved.
I think you might want to resign yourself to the fact that NVIDIA is not going anywhere. Even if Larrabee proves to be wildly successful and research firms have a compelling reason to make the switch, it will still take years before widespread adoption. And I doubt NVIDIA will be sitting on their hands during that whole time. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=21940 | DemBones79 (255) Jul 27, 2009 - 04:51 pm
| | I have to agree. Saying that Sims 3 sold so well because it's DRM-free is a logical fallacy. Just look at the sales performance of the previous Sims games/expansion packs. They pretty much dominate the sales charts every time a new one comes out. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=21867 | DemBones79 (255) Jul 10, 2009 - 04:06 pm
| I'll partially agree to that. It is true that there are a disproportionately large number of sub-par gfx cards out there. Their main purpose in life is Windows acceleration (dating from the glory days of Windows 3.1) and video decoding. They're really not meant for much more.
But mostly, I blame the game publishers for the perceived graphics problem. For example, how many high-end, and I mean top of the line, graphics cards could play Crysis at 1680x1050 with high settings at 60 fps when it first came out? As I recall, round about... none. And this isn't a new phenomenon, either. How many computers could handle Quake at its best settings when it came out? Doom? X-Wing? MechWarrior 2? The list goes on and on.
You see, the "problem" is that PC game designers include all these high-end modes, knowing full well that there isn't a thing in the world that can run it at playable speeds. Why? Who knows. My guess is just to show off what the engine is capable of (in hopes of future licensees). id Software was still making money off the Quake engine years after Quake came out. Likewise for Quake II and Quake III Arena. By the time later licensed games came out, hardware was powerful enough to handle some of the more advanced techniques the engine supported from day one.
I have 2 issues with this:
1. If game devs know it isn't playable (30fps or higher) on current, top of the line hardware, then why not disable the settings and hide them from view? Make them available at a later time via a patch. Call it a value add if you want.
2. Stop focusing so much time on making the game look mind-numbingly gorgeous at max detail settings. How about focusing on making it look really good on mid-level detail, something an average gaming-class machine can run at 30-60fps. I don't expect mid-detail to look fantastic, but it should look at least as good as 1-2 year old games at their best settings or close to it. I can't count how many games there are out there that look like absolute ass on anything lower than "high". Textures get washed out, animations become jerky, or everything becomes the same, consistent level of brightness, regardless of where your light sources are.
Every interview I have read with a PC game dev who has developed something for a console has said essentially the same thing: it is frustrating due to the limitations, but the challenge is rewarding. In the end, those hard restrictions help focus the game, prevent feature creep, and really force them to focus on playability first (unless you work for Peter Molyneaux.)
Finally, why don't more games ship with some form of benchmarking system. Run your computer through some tests, using the game engine and scripted events that may be similar to worst-case scenarios of in-game action. Then tailor the graphics settings to give the best possible visual experience while maintaining a playable framerate. A lot of games have a sort of auto-configure option, but I have yet to see one that works the way it should. Either it suggests a setting way weaker than what my system can actually handle, or it detects that my gfx card supports some feature or another that actually cripples its performance. Just because it can perform some new shader function, doesn't mean that it should in all cases.
Anyway, that's my $1.50. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=21847 | DemBones79 (255) Jul 08, 2009 - 07:10 am
| I liked the fixed weapon slots for MW4, at least for some slots. It always broke my suspension of disbelief when I saw lasers coming out of a missile pod, so I was glad that it restricted what went where.
Be nice to have more flexibility in weapons loadout, though. Looking forward to making my MW3 Suicide Thor again (6 PPCs). Flag this | Edit this post |
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