CPU vs GPU

[Skybuck Flying]

A lot of design choises are based on information and experience, but

sometimes just trying shit is the only way to "click" new information into
the existing framework of experience.. if That Guy is interested in GPU
programming (why else would he hang around here asking these questions?) I
recommend he tries some GPU programming, it's easy & fun.. and get
impressive results really easily.

I am interested in this since all new games use it and otherwise I dont know
what these games are talking about etc...

I'll be like: "huh? what the **** is all that shit ?" (pixel shaders
this, vertex shaders that, program fragments, vertex arrays, etc )

Also before one can start programming all this "shit" one has to know the
concepts behind it, otherwise I would have no idea wtf I am doing =D

Besides from that... I think these concepts can also be manually programmed
in any language... or one's favorite language to just try out these concepts
and 'render' some image, just to see if it would work... it wouldn't have to
be fast... and it probably wouldn't be fast anyway... but then.. once the
concept is understood, programmed and tested... the concept can be
programmed and applied to the gpu.

Maybe that's a lot of work... or maybe not... but it could be simpler. And I
like to keep things simply most of the time.

Seeing those hardware languages is scary shit... (it's cool, but not
something I would like to use on a frequently basis ) nowadays these
gpu's have higher level shading languages... but that's all new... and it's
not in my favorite programming language

MUCH easier than software rendering days, much... and things work a hell of
a lot better "out of the box" novadays than just 4-5 years ago! Biggest
problem is getting started.. maybe he'll ask about that.. if not.. I assume
he is already doing whatever he likes to do..

Well at least software rendering works. Especially if the game itself wrote
it... It could have used non-direct x and non opengl and just gdi.

GDI still works on windows 95. Windows 95 default does not have direct x. I
do think windows 95 default does have opengl.

I am not sure what windows nt has...

I do know that windows 98, and windows xp have some kind of direct x
version.

That's another issue game developers face... making sure that uses have the
right <- big issue direct x version.

DirectX in itself is buggy, though, hard, wrong documentation examples, etc.
Give and take a little

I can see why id software likes to use open gl... <- it works even on
windows 95 !

Though I have used open gl for drawing a 2d vector game =D and the funny
thing is... when lines are drawn with opengl the lines sometimes have gaps
in them... so opengl software/drivers/hardware isn't perfect. It's probably
inconsistent. That can be an adventage and disadvantage...

When having programmed a game with a software renderer... the chances are
very high that it will always display the same. The only thing that can be
different is gamma/brightness.

With opengl or direct x a game can suddenly look better or worse on such
graphic cards.. sometimes the game might not work at all !

So maybe I am seeing a total different kind of gamer... not your typical
hardcore gamer that has the lastest hardware and the latest drivers and the
latest direct x and the latest operating system.

I am seeing simple people that have a simple computer =D have a simple
computer mind lol... and just also want to play some simple or little bit
more complex fun games.

For me as a developer it makes more sense to try and develop a fun game for
everybody... not just for the hardcore gamer. I can't compete with that.

I can't compete with game developers that are supported by nvidia or ati =D
I can't compete with people that have years of experience with graphics lol.

So as long as I want my game to work on even windows 95 and have no
graphical artifacts I stuck to gdi =D

gdi however is pretty limited... it's 10x maybe 100x slower... it can only
draw lines, circles and polygons and pixels via scanlines.

I did include opengl option... so the game could use opengl... but then when
developing the game further... i through it out again because of missing
font capabilities... gdi was more easy... it as a simple textout api ok
maybe that's stupid since opengl has text as well...

But also the opengl screen ratio/perspective was a bit weird, I did not
understand it... horz vs vert. When the game would be resized everything
became smaller which is not really a problem, but then when the screen went
width big, height small everything would look squashed.

With gdi... no resizing is done... it could do that... but I dont want
that... it just cuts of the screen.

But now I have this simple 2d vector game with arrows flying around... it
uses simple polygon graphics.

I would be cool if I could do lighting effects like quake 1 did... I am not
sure if that is even possible in gdi...

I could use some sort of bitmap... like a phong shading map thing... and
then try to make it transparent etc... then it would be applied to simply
everything... it would look bad I think and totally unrealistic but it's an
unrealistic game anyway.

So what do these gpu's have to offer for unrealistic games ?

All these gpu's are focused/aimed at creating somewhat realistic
scenes/believeable scenes...
Sure someone can say: Nonono rpg's aren't realistic... because it has
fairies in them and witches and devils =D

But it sure looks more realistic ! =D

Whatever happened to games that look unrealistic ?

I do know that nintendo is trying to make a mario game with I think vector
graphics... paper mario I think it's called.

Just to piss people off: Can today's pc gpu's do that ? or is their
functionality totally limited to realistic graphics ?

Just to be fair I don't like nintendo games generally since I am a 'grown
up' believe it or not... and nintendo games are pretty stupid in my
mind... way to simple... yet I never play them so what do I know =D

I do know one thing... when I played "moonbase commander" a sigh of relief
went through my mind and body ! AHHHhhhhhh finally a game with authentic and
refreshing graphics ! ( no 3d, just 2d with special effects I think... )

I would like to see more of those games with "refreshing" graphics and not
just another shooters, rpg, rts, platformer with standard 3d graphics.

Doom 3 will be refreshing because it's one of the first games with all that
"new stuff": "The plastic look": "The white specular thing" "The 3d
bumpmapping effect" "very detailed beautifully mixed colored textures" The
shadows itself for so far I have seen don't really do it for me... the add a
little bit of extra realism to it... like seeing the shadow of some pipe on
a wall... I dont really miss it if it's not there. In fact if somebody asked
me what do you miss in this scene ? I would not even know that their is a
shadow missing =D The steam doesn't look realistic, neither do the
particles from the machines. I think that could have been done better
somehow

Now just having all these nice pretty spectacular new graphics if course not
enough... the main reason to play doom3 is what do you do with these
graphics ?! how much fun is the game ! that's where I expect doom3 to rock
everybodies socks off =D Just hearing all the sounds is enough to make you
come back to the game to experience it again ! Nothing like that on the face
of the planet ! =D Seeing, hearing how the sound interacts with you is
definetly something that adds to the game ! =D Zombies trying to whipe you
when you run past them... soldiers screaming at you... monsters trying to
take a bite out of you =D A player needs to get used to that... the more
players play it.. the more it's going to grow on them and making them love
it =D

Now as great as all this sounds... It took 3 or maybe 4 years to develop
this ?! with a team of people that is !

Even if I would start developing such a 'beast' it would again cost me 3 to
4 years maybe more maybe less with help

So in short: "I would be out of my ****ing mind if I would attempt something
like that =D"

Butttt... I do like playing around with it a bit... the concepts... maybe
some code... maybe trying out some things... and who knows maybe some
litttttle tiny little bit of piece could be used =D

Bye, Bye,
Skybuck.

 

[Philippa Cowderoy]

Seems like re-inventing the wheel to me dude =D

More like re-implementing it.

out of range errors, buffer overflows, exceptions etc... complexity
management.

These are issues already, albeit more simply than in a lot of algorithms.
Looks pretty solvable with reasonably simple type systems for now though.

And it's (ughhhhly) C only

Where is my delphi compiler for gpu's ?

Mere syntax at this point - the stuff being used for GPUs is C-inspired,
not actually C.

So no, I don't think you have a point. Most of the work transfers.

 

[Wael El-Oraiby]

Well let's take a look at doom 3 alpha... it runs slow... I dont know why it
runs slow.

I do know that id software engines are one of the fastest engines on the
face of the planet for games with decent graphics =D

Looking at doom 3 I see the following:

+ portal engine
+ bsp trees
+ possibly backface culling.

Ok, now I have been under a rock for the past 5 years or so lol when it
comes to graphics.

I was amazing doom 3 still does all this in cpu, but I could be wrong.

DOOM 3 is slow because it uses shadow volumes, this is a very
computing power consumming technique, which requires many passes
depending on the number of lights. That's why it consumes alot of
bandwidth.

Some parts of these algorithms could be done inside the gpu.

I can imagine that a gpu can 'cut' triangles with the viewing frustum ? (
Yet I think you say this is bad or something ? )

Backface culling is indeed done in GPU, while for BSP and portals
these are ways to manage scenes for visibility, the complexity of the
BSP makes it almost impossible to implement on todays GPUs.

Also new verteces can not be created inside a gpu ? or maybe it can ?
because clipping a triangle with any plane can introduce new verteces.
I saw some other power point presentation... that verteces can be clipped
??? or maybe they mean projected onto a plane or something ???

How can verteces be clipped and be usefull since now their coordinates are
totally different ? seems weird to me... seems like objects would get
deformed...

I can see how a line can be clipped or a triangle... but a vertex ? huh ?

clipping is done inside the GPU these days, and don't think of it as
creating vertices, rather thing of it as limitting rasteriser
horizontal line. If you have done a 3D software renderer one day, you
surely understand what I mean.
and for creating vertices, well the next gen cards are capable of
doing so through tesselation: "displacement maps" on ATI Radeon 9600+
and GeForce 6800

So one question is:

Can gpu's clip lines, triangles (maybe even verteces?) against the frustum
or any other plane or triangle ?

yes it can clip them, as I have told you prior to rasterizing.

I can also see how a gpu could do backface culling.

backface culling is done in the GPU today.

But I am guessing the portal engine and the bsp trees are still inside the
cpu.

yes, these are still to be done in the CPU.

I know that bsp trees are used to detect if a certain wall is behind another
certain wall so that the wall that is behind can be skipped/not drawn.

Portal engines are used to skip entire rooms.

It also looks like doom3 is using some technique to wrap objects inside
boxes... and then probably do a simpel 'is box in view' test... does that
technique have a name which is easy to remember ?

you mean, bounding boxes? well that's help but I guess carmack uses
bounding sphere then bounding boxes, we have to ask him to be sure

-wael-

"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned
my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him
the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization
should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless
brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of
patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble
war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an
action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is
nothing but an act of murder."
-- Albert Einstein (1875-1955)

 

[David Haley]

This day of Tue, 18 May 2004 18:07:41 +0200, "Skybuck Flying"

I am interested in this since all new games use it and otherwise I dont know
what these games are talking about etc...

I'll be like: "huh? what the **** is all that shit ?" (pixel shaders
this, vertex shaders that, program fragments, vertex arrays, etc )

Also before one can start programming all this "shit" one has to know the
concepts behind it, otherwise I would have no idea wtf I am doing =D

Besides from that... I think these concepts can also be manually programmed
in any language... or one's favorite language to just try out these concepts
and 'render' some image, just to see if it would work... it wouldn't have to
be fast... and it probably wouldn't be fast anyway... but then.. once the
concept is understood, programmed and tested... the concept can be
programmed and applied to the gpu.

Maybe that's a lot of work... or maybe not... but it could be simpler. And I
like to keep things simply most of the time.

If I understand what you're saying, it's what almost every computer graphics
student does in their first one or two courses. Our very first assignment in our
very first graphics class here at the university is to write a 'Paint' program,
which is not necessarily as easy as it sounds. You actually have to draw bezier
curves and other such very complicated stuff using only pixels... can you
believe it?

gdi however is pretty limited... it's 10x maybe 100x slower... it can only
draw lines, circles and polygons and pixels via scanlines.

That's enough to do everything you need, though. Line/circle functions are just
for convenience/optimization, anyways. You technically only need pixels.

I did include opengl option... so the game could use opengl... but then when
developing the game further... i through it out again because of missing
font capabilities... gdi was more easy... it as a simple textout api ok
maybe that's stupid since opengl has text as well...

But also the opengl screen ratio/perspective was a bit weird, I did not
understand it... horz vs vert. When the game would be resized everything
became smaller which is not really a problem, but then when the screen went
width big, height small everything would look squashed.

Sounds like you should've done some camera adjustment/viewport mapping and the
like. OpenGL can handle that without any trouble.

With gdi... no resizing is done... it could do that... but I dont want
that... it just cuts of the screen.

But now I have this simple 2d vector game with arrows flying around... it
uses simple polygon graphics.

I would be cool if I could do lighting effects like quake 1 did... I am not
sure if that is even possible in gdi...

Heh heh. Of course it's possible. You can draw pixels; that's all you need.
Lines and circles are just convenience functions; all you need to do graphics is
a DrawPixel function.

I believe that anything that can be done on hardware can be done in software -
it's just a matter of speed. (see other discussions on specialized vs. general
hardware.)

I could use some sort of bitmap... like a phong shading map thing... and
then try to make it transparent etc... then it would be applied to simply
everything... it would look bad I think and totally unrealistic but it's an
unrealistic game anyway.

Yes, it would probably look pretty bad... or very weird, at the best.

So what do these gpu's have to offer for unrealistic games ?

Depends on what you define by "unrealistic game". I think the term you're
looking for is 'not photorealistic'.

All these gpu's are focused/aimed at creating somewhat realistic
scenes/believeable scenes...
Sure someone can say: Nonono rpg's aren't realistic... because it has
fairies in them and witches and devils =D

But it sure looks more realistic ! =D

Whatever happened to games that look unrealistic ?

I do know that nintendo is trying to make a mario game with I think vector
graphics... paper mario I think it's called.

Just to piss people off: Can today's pc gpu's do that ? or is their
functionality totally limited to realistic graphics ?

Haven't you ever seen games that imitate the cartoon effect using shaders? That
is, take the 3d models and emphasize the edges a lot - use thick black lines -
to imitate a cartoon look.

On the other hand, the main point of good 3d graphics cards is to do ... high
quality 3d graphics. Don't use a can opener to cut a bag open... pick the right
tool for the job.

Now just having all these nice pretty spectacular new graphics if course not
enough... the main reason to play doom3 is what do you do with these
graphics ?! how much fun is the game ! that's where I expect doom3 to rock
everybodies socks off =D Just hearing all the sounds is enough to make you
come back to the game to experience it again ! Nothing like that on the face
of the planet ! =D Seeing, hearing how the sound interacts with you is
definetly something that adds to the game ! =D Zombies trying to whipe you
when you run past them... soldiers screaming at you... monsters trying to
take a bite out of you =D A player needs to get used to that... the more
players play it.. the more it's going to grow on them and making them love
it =D

Now as great as all this sounds... It took 3 or maybe 4 years to develop
this ?! with a team of people that is !

Well, you gotta get them pixels in line and teach them fancy tricks! Seriously,
this is not easy stuff. That's why computer graphics is a major research field,
with a lot of really smart people working really hard on it. Incidentally, iD
software has a track record of making excellent software, which is another
reason it takes longer to develop. That's just how life goes.

Even if I would start developing such a 'beast' it would again cost me 3 to
4 years maybe more maybe less with help

So in short: "I would be out of my ****ing mind if I would attempt something
like that =D"

Yes, you would be... especially since apparently you seem unclear on the
differences between hardware and software rendering.

Butttt... I do like playing around with it a bit... the concepts... maybe
some code... maybe trying out some things... and who knows maybe some
litttttle tiny little bit of piece could be used =D

Bye, Bye,
Skybuck.

Write a software renderer that can do lighting, there's a first start. Learn how
to use them pixels to make pretty-pretty pictures. Then you can worry about
making Doom4's graphics engine.

-dhaley

 

[joe smith]

Looking at doom 3 I see the following:

+ bsp trees

No, you don't.

+ possibly backface culling.

Backface culling is done with the GPU. Look. Backface culling is viewpoint
dependent. If we cull with CPU we have to dynamically build the working set
of primitives to render (or atleast indices for glDrawElements() or
glDrawArrays()). Culling with CPU eats CPU time for no substential benefit.
Per primitive culling is folly. Large batches mean business.

I was amazing doom 3 still does all this in cpu, but I could be wrong.

How you arrive to this conclusion? If you base your conclusion on 1 year old
alpha prototype don't bother.

Some parts of these algorithms could be done inside the gpu.

And which parts you think cannot and contribute to the alleged 'poor
performance' ? I'm all ears, I suddenly realized you are the man to listen
when it comes to graphics programming.

I can imagine that a gpu can 'cut' triangles with the viewing frustum ? (
Yet I think you say this is bad or something ? )

No, it is Good. Submit. Large. Batches. Good. Trying. To. Limit. Work. By.
Culling. And. Rebuilding. Working. Set. Per. Primitive. Bad. Where you get
the impression that I say anywhere that clipping with GPU is Bad? I am
merely saying that large batches good. Whatever leads to them is good.
However, there is certain balance: it IS beneficial to avoid redundant
computations. So. The solution is to cull (not backface cull, mind you)
larger pieces at a time, not individual primitives. This is what I was
adviding against and who knows their shit don't need this advice to anyway,
and it's wasted on you so hello... wtf I am doing replying to you anyway?

Also new verteces can not be created inside a gpu ? or maybe it can ?
because clipping a triangle with any plane can introduce new verteces.

You know too much to be dangerous. To yourself. Those vertices are not
synthesized out of thin air, they are always along line from one existing
vertex to another. They are in clipped edges. They contribute NOTHING new
visually to the rendered frame. The clipping could be done per pixel just
aswell but it would involve more overhead so it would not make any sense:
generating "new" vertices in clipping is trivial, cheap. Clipping in
traditional "OpenGL" -like transformation pipeline is done in "clip
coordinates" which are homogenous format which already contains perspective
information: very, very cheap coordinate system to do the clipping in.
Gradients are linear in clipping coordinates, this is a very good thing..
lalala... who am I kidding?

How can verteces be clipped and be usefull since now their coordinates are
totally different ? seems weird to me... seems like objects would get
deformed...

Someone must have made a practical joke on you.. vertices are not clipped,
edges are clipped. How you clip a vertex? Split it in half? Huh? Crazy..

^-- POINT PRIMITIVES, however, can be clipped because they have AREA..
vertices don't... but that is a completely different ballgame..

I can see how a line can be clipped or a triangle... but a vertex ? huh ?

Yessir, you have been ****ed in the ass mentally (huh?).

Can gpu's clip lines, triangles (maybe even verteces?) against the frustum
or any other plane or triangle ?

Now this is getting ridiculous, sorry Miller, the joke's over.. come to my
office first thing in the morning, thank you..

I know that bsp trees are used to detect if a certain wall is behind another
certain wall so that the wall that is behind can be skipped/not drawn.

Yeah in Quake ****ing One engine where every single ****ing pixel was
expensive so having no overdraw was a Good side effect. Put a ****ing BSP
tree into a ****ing GPU powered renderer and get humiliated by guys who are
stupid enough not even to THINK about culling.. they just do a ****ing
glDrawElements() and just FAP!!!!! render 100K triangles into screen faster
you do your 10K which come out of the culling pipe marked as visible. And
their shitty brute-force renderer will not only look faster, they will SHIT
on your "optimized BSP tree" piece of shit. No offence. That's just how it
is.

Portal engines are used to skip entire rooms.

First claim that has any relevance to the real world, congratulations..
though those would be called sectors otherwise pretty nice. Rooms and
windows and doors are a good analogue to explain how it works to a 10 year
old. Hehheh.

It also looks like doom3 is using some technique to wrap objects inside
boxes... and then probably do a simpel 'is box in view' test... does that
technique have a name which is easy to remember ?

Oh come on, that gives you away as a troll for certain, dude.. you know
****ing way too much to play stupid. It was plain obvious from the first
second actually but now I am 100% certain! Well, it was glad to show my mad
skillz, thanks for the soap box dude.

Bye,
Joe Smith

 

[joe smith]

For me as a developer it makes more sense to try and develop a fun game
for

everybody... not just for the hardcore gamer. I can't compete with that.

If you make a game you like to play yourself you will find out other people
who propably like it even better. Very hard to make a game you are pleased
with yourself..

I can't compete with game developers that are supported by nvidia or ati =D
I can't compete with people that have years of experience with graphics

lol.

The funny thing is the people who get support from ATI and NVIDIA are the
ones who need it the least. They are supported because NVIDIA and ATI need
*them* the most.

So what do these gpu's have to offer for unrealistic games ?

Mathematics at interactive framerates.

Whatever happened to games that look unrealistic ?

I think all games look unrealistic. Real footage is dirty. Lighting is poor.
There is dust everywhere. There is noise everywhere. Etc. Contemporary
realtime computer graphics is "clean", it takes a lot of effort to make
things look dirty.. yet to see anyone really succeed with that in realtime
graphics. Heck, even the acclaimed "LOTR Gollum" renderings are too pretty,
too neat.. too clean.. but atleast some people think the results are
"photorealistic" (-my ass).

I don't necessarily find this bad. It's all good and decent that games have
eye candy. Definitely I am more likely to be entertained with game that
looks nice than any other way. I am a bit funny guy that I prefer content. I
like games like "Civilization", Master of Orion (and MOO 2), that one
bluebyte's gem of gems: Battle Isle 2. I never liked DOOMs or Quakes, boring
stuff. Something good came out of ID Software's engines for me: Half-Life.
Now it's out-dated graphically and played it through way too many times now,
and the ending in alien world was crap.. but the other 75% of the game make
up for it. Well, yeah, Warcraft III is also neat, Simcity (all others but 4,
which sucks) are cool. Speaking of which, original Railroad Tycoon was also
very addictive.

That sort of stuff: good shit. Modern 3D accelerated Eye Candy is fun for 5
minutes, then you seen the candy, then the content disappoints so I don't
really play games anymore. I like the *technical* challenge (what challenge?
of GPU programming. Okay, let's be realistic here.. GPU's allow to
program The Same Old Shit again.. just differently, doing things more
efficiently has somekind of ****ing magic spell going for itself.. because..
it's addictive. Let's not kid ourselves: the stuff 'everyone' is using GPU
for is stuff that has already Been Invented for most parts.. papers are
written and submitted to Siggraph how to do that 1970's stuff ON GPU!!! Per
pixel lighting with dp3 is NOTHING NEW to offline renderers.. shading
languages (RenderMan, anyone?) is nothing new. Etc etc etc. What is New is
that we get this amazing power for less than five hundred bucks (less than
HUNDRED bucks if we don't have to have the Cutting Edge Shit) and it does
what we just few years ago needed Top Of The Line PC (well, or workstation
from any vendor you can fathom!).

Now _THAT_ is very, very cool. Cheap power which just waits there to be used
(whored). Yo, raps... <- da ill33st str3Etw1Se r3m4Rk \/


<clip clip> Well, all this typing made me wake up to the fact that I need my
beauty sleep (I'm f'ing ugly, trust me, I need it)..

 

[Darthy]

I think all games look unrealistic. Real footage is dirty. Lighting is poor.
There is dust everywhere. There is noise everywhere. Etc. Contemporary
realtime computer graphics is "clean", it takes a lot of effort to make
things look dirty.. yet to see anyone really succeed with that in realtime

I can agree with you to some degree. Yes games are not true VR - but
they are getting there with every new major graphic engine generation
and GPU to push it. Compare Far Cry (2004) to Pitfall (1982)
http://www.ticino.com/usr/eleven/Pitfall.htm (screen shots) which was
State of the Art back then. Hell, compare the movie, The Last Star
Fighter (A movie I loved as a kid) which used a Cry computer to
generate its graphics which were incredible in 1984 for a movie.

Now we have games that creare simular graphics on the fly or can do
better rendering on a $1000 home computer. Fry Cry has a lot of
"life" in it because the amount of plants it uses to create its world
which is HUGE. But yes, there are only about a dozen different plants
used over and over again. But hey, thats very hard work for a
computer! Compared to real life, Far Cry isn't close.... but its a
lot better than Lara Croft on the PSX and older games to "realism".

BTW: with proper camera equipment and crew, the shots should be clean
with perfect lighting...

graphics. Heck, even the acclaimed "LOTR Gollum" renderings are too pretty,
too neat.. too clean.. but atleast some people think the results are
"photorealistic" (-my ass).

I think Gollum was VERY VERY well done, if you are a 3D expert, you
can pick up the effects more than someone who is there to enjoy the
movie. I'm into special effects and I do try to enjoy what I watch
and later like to see what went into the shots. Compare Gollum in the
LOTR 1 and 2nd movie and there is a HUGE difference. The animators
did an amazing job and the movements, copied by the actor broght the
character to "life". It was easy to forget that Gollum was just CGI.

Hey, l compared to crap Lucas did with his last 2 Star Wars film with
CGI people (like characters jumping onto the back of the Bull like
creater was horrible). Perfection is the weakeness of CGI -

But I consider the BEST CGI in a film to be FInal Fantasy, which
shouldn't have bombed in the theaters. It was a BASIC good SciFi
Story, it was told well. The movie looks great in every frame. And
the advantage of making the WHOLE movie in CGI is that nothing "sticks
out" as a special effect from the live actors. Also, compare the
early AKI to the final movie version... the early one was too perfect,
she looked like a doll.

I don't necessarily find this bad. It's all good and decent that games have
eye candy. Definitely I am more likely to be entertained with game that
looks nice than any other way. I am a bit funny guy that I prefer content. I

Well... recently they are talking about a couple of SIM like porno
games coming out... hmmm...

 

[Gerry Quinn]

For me as a developer it makes more sense to try and develop a fun game

for

And why not - but there is no point in trying to convince yourself that
modern graphical technologies don't work, just because you have decided,
from choice or necessity, to make your game without them. If you are
afraid to compare your game objectively with what is out there, you have
lost already.

- Gerry Quinn

 

[Skybuck Flying]

that.

And why not - but there is no point in trying to convince yourself that
modern graphical technologies don't work, just because you have decided,
from choice or necessity, to make your game without them. If you are
afraid to compare your game objectively with what is out there, you have
lost already.

I already made my point.

What's the most played game on this planet ?

Solitaire !

 

[Skybuck Flying]

that.

And why not - but there is no point in trying to convince yourself that
modern graphical technologies don't work,

Technically sometimes they don't work... <- driver bugs. I dont like that.

In Psycho terms they absolutely do work <- beautifull graphics can sure
attract people to it.

In fun terms sometimes it adds fun and sometimes it doesn't.

A cheap way to make my game more fun would be to make it 3D and just turn it
into a shooter... that's way to funny to do for real !

Everything can be turned into a shooter... halo was a strategy game that was
turned into a shooter... I hope that doesn't mean that everything has to be
turned into a shooter

just because you have decided, from choice or necessity, to make your game

without them. If you are

I think it would be more wise for me to spent time on finding ways to make
my game more fun... that's where the real creativivity is required, and
that's the most difficult part of creating games... I am sure =D

afraid to compare your game objectively with what is out there, you have
lost already.

I think all programmers would be afraid to show their unfinished game to
just anybody... since most people only see what they see... some might see
the potential of a game...

I am sure carmack would be very afraid if too many people saw his alpha
version =D

So I am not really afraid of anything lol... The only thing I am afraid off
is people telling me to go create beautifull gpu graphics which would just
be a big waste of time... I am afraid of wasting my time in such a big way
=D

Skybuck.

 

[joe smith]

and GPU to push it. Compare Far Cry (2004) to Pitfall (1982)

http://www.ticino.com/usr/eleven/Pitfall.htm (screen shots) which was
State of the Art back then. Hell, compare the movie, The Last Star

I just want to give away a piece of information that I am old enough that I
actually had to *wait* for Pitfall to be released, just like the kids
novadays *wait* for Half-Life2 and DOOM III to be released. ;-) ;-)

 

[cowboyz]

I already made my point.

What's the most played game on this planet ?

Solitaire !

This may be true but it is also true that the gamers high performance gfx
cards make up something like 5% of the market.

If you want to play far cry/doom 3 / hl2 or whatever other feature enriched
fps that is coming out these days at 640x480 and 5 fps then your card is
fine. There are ALOT of gamers (myself included) who prefer to pay a
higher price for a video card that can play these same games at 1280x1024 or
even (god forbid) 1600x1200 and still be producing a smooth 50 fps. I. for
one, get really irritated when you get in a firefight and the screen can't
keep up with the high action that is flying round. Of course, I don't have
that problem because my processor is alot bigger than a PII 450 and my video
card is much superior to a FX5200.

 

[Raghar]

On Tue, 18 May 2004 22:16:56 +0300, "joe smith"


I think Gollum was VERY VERY well done, if you are a 3D expert, you
can pick up the effects more than someone who is there to enjoy the
movie. I'm into special effects and I do try to enjoy what I watch
and later like to see what went into the shots. Compare Gollum in the
LOTR 1 and 2nd movie and there is a HUGE difference. The animators
did an amazing job and the movements, copied by the actor broght the
character to "life". It was easy to forget that Gollum was just CGI.

Hey, l compared to crap Lucas did with his last 2 Star Wars film with
CGI people (like characters jumping onto the back of the Bull like
creater was horrible). Perfection is the weakeness of CGI -

But I consider the BEST CGI in a film to be FInal Fantasy, which
shouldn't have bombed in the theaters. It was a BASIC good SciFi
Story, it was told well. The movie looks great in every frame. And
the advantage of making the WHOLE movie in CGI is that nothing "sticks
out" as a special effect from the live actors. Also, compare the
early AKI to the final movie version... the early one was too perfect,
she looked like a doll.

Final Fantasy games were with much better story than the movie. I think
square let themseflves to be manipulated into US like movie, so it turned
bad. Do you remmember FF 5? In comparisson to that the movie was flashy,
but with little story.

 

[Darthy]

Final Fantasy games were with much better story than the movie. I think
square let themseflves to be manipulated into US like movie, so it turned
bad. Do you remmember FF 5? In comparisson to that the movie was flashy,
but with little story.

Possibly... its hard to get a Japanese movie into mainstream US
Markets... I watch some anime, especially the Miyazaki films (I don't
buy lotso anime or go to those conventions) which are very good... FF
movie was a CG anime movie... So I don't put it as a BAD movie, just
great visuals with a basic story. It flowed faily well... look at the
REALLY BAD movies (or a bit bad) - Battlefield Earth (They are looking
into making that crap into a sequel), Star Wars EP 1-2 - where lucas
shows he is truely a lame writer (but awsome visual genuis).

I never got into console games since the Odssey2 days (early-mid 80s)
- My PS collection never grew past 6 titles... and its now dead.

PS: If you happen to watch FF movie again, near the end when they are
in the crater... The heroine neals down by her boyfriend inside the
thingy. At her hip, her uniform has many sections of "rubber" - in
one of the seems between two sections - it opens up slightly and you
see the background behind her.


- - - - -
Remember: In the USA - it is dangeroud to draw or write about Heir Bush in a negative way. The police or SS are called, people threaten to kill you. (What country is this again?)

- 15yr old boy in Washington was disciplined for drawing such images.
- White House blows cover of an undercover agent because her husband said there were no WMD (before the USA started the war) - her job was finding terrorist. (This makes sense?)
God bless the land of the free. Where you can burn the Constitution... Ashcroft does it every day.