More on NVIDIA's Involvement In X Box 106
ManWithNoName writes "In the Private Eye, there's an interesting look at NVIDIA's involvement (which was officially announced today) in the X-Box, with their APU and iGPU and how these technologies could have the potential to be used for other products other than Xbox. There's also a very satirical "General Industry Interview" (involving Sony, Sega, 3dfx, NVIDIA, ATI etc...)with everyone involved in the industry that either is inside the Xbox or has tried to get into it over the pasty year. On a more serious note, the authors talk about a conspiracy that Microsoft's Xbox will punch the PC industry in the nuts with the whole Delay to DX8 causing NVIDIA, 3dfx and ATI to delay the releases of their next generation 3D chips, which are dependant upon the unreleased API."
releasing new products (Score:2)
Hey! All you Brits out there. (Score:1)
Isn't the word 'pasty' widely used in your country? Those of us on this side of the pond could use some help with it in this context.
Re:Wouldn't it be cool... (Score:1)
DRIVE BY TROLL!!!
BANG BANG!
Re:I haven't been keeping up. (Score:2)
"If I'm not mistaken, all of the progress in Direct3d, from v1-v6 was to *catch* up to OpenGL.
Which means, as of D3d6, MS is starting to reach parity with OpenGL"
Well, if (according to you) they caught up to OpenGL around version 6, I guess they're PASSING OpenGL now, since D3D 7 has been out forever, and D3D 8 is on its way.
Then again, I think you just got your version numbers mixed up. I haven't done any D3D since version5, which was a complete mess. I did a little OpenGL too, and it was very simple and clean. I guess I'll have to try some D3d 8 programming soon, just to see how it will progress. Yeah, I'll be a game programmer someday, suuuuuuure I will....
Re:I'm skeptical about the X-box (Score:1)
Will the X Box succeed? Well, I'm not going to buy one, but that's just me. If there are enough interesting games for it, it should sell. If the games blow chunks, the X Box will tank no matter how good it itself is.
I'd also like to note that if the X Box even does moderately well, it will probably be followed in a couple of years by a new model (in the manner of Nintendo, Sony and Sega)... but I don't see any 2nd stage MS gamebox being backwards compatible for some reason...
Kierthos
Re:DirectX and new feeatures (Score:2)
Farenheit was basically dropped by both MS and SGI. SGI opted to concentrate more on the open-source, OpenGL on Linux, etc. There's a lot of debate on whether MS really ever intended to do stuff with Farenheit, or if it was a merely something they did to keep folks busy while they simultaneously marketed DX/D3D.
Does really matter, however. The end result is that Farenheit is effectively dead.
Operations per second vs GFLOPS (Score:2)
Don't tell me they're counting the blending multipliers.
Mod this up quick (Score:1)
Re:Funny you should say that... (Score:1)
I just got bitchslapped HARD; look at my history.
It's ALL marked as Troll.
I mean, yeah, I wasn't tryin' to be serious or nothin', but I still want people to read my posts! And some of this stuff is completely unrelated.
So either someone's been harvestin' too many mod points, or this was Slashdot Staff who didn't feel like sendin' me an e-mail sayin' "By the way, we don't like you" and shit.
I'd like to know which one it was, by the way. So if'yall creeps been viewin' my history and moddin' me down, just shout out so we can return the favor, you know what I'm sayin'?
Re:Can someone fill me in? (Score:5)
Their answer, in short, was that they are Microsoft. They make DirectX, therefore it makes since for them to push DirectX. The Dev guy also stated that if anyone wishes to make an OpenGL subsystem for the Xbox, they are welcome to, but it won't be supported by Microsoft.
One of their exact quotes was:
"Why put our eggs in 2 baskets that are half-assed, when we can put them all in one and it be kickass." This was from the Multimedia Head of the Xbox Dev Team.
Also, they stated that it will not BSOD.. they can't afford that. That quickly got questions like: "Then what color is it?". heh, quite funny.. you had to be there I guess.
But, overall, the presentation really didn't impress me... too much "This is what 10% of the theorectical power of the Xbox will be able to do" crap.
Well.. that's my bit for now.
Re:Vendors waiting for DX8 (Score:3)
Judging from past experiences, including Q3 for Linux, I think the answer is "not much." Linux may be growing 2000% a year or whatever, but it's a strange market. If you make one minor license screw up, you end up as a Slashdot headline and vigilantes bring down your site. Warning: This is how many developers see the culture surrounding Linux. Don't laugh it off.
Re:DirectX and new feeatures (Score:1)
Running an open standard in these days of hyperactive lawyers is a pain. One concern is that people adding new functionality to OpenGL (or even reviewing specifications for it) might sneak in some proprietary intellectual property. If this made it into the standard unchallenged, the owner could then reap a substantial windfall by suing anyone unlucky enough to implement it.
The way this problem is solved is to require anyone active in the ARB to sign an agreement stating that they'll simply disclose any proprietary interest they might have in features that are being considered for use in the API.
Wasn't this exactly how we wound up with RamBus? A quick summary from one of the comments on that story :
1. Rambus joined JEDEC, a consortium of companies devoted to sharing R&D work and forming industry standards to keep costs down for everyone
2. Rambus files for patents after joining the JEDEC, without disclosing the fact. These patents go directly against the industry standards the JEDEC is trying to establish.
3. Rambus is now using this information learned at meetings to "extend and prosecute pending applications to target the latest industry standards proposed in these meetings."
The link is here [lostcircuits.com].
Honestly, this kind of stuff scares me...
--
Re:I'm skeptical about the X-box (Score:2)
You got a better source than Interbrand for your claim? Post the link.
games for Xbox (Score:1)
Yes, lots. The Xbox site [xbox.com] has a list [xbox.com] of 17 game developers (Flash required).
There are many others who say they'll release Xbox games.
Maybe an X-Box only type game?
Ahh, there's the rub. If you write to DirectX 8, an Xbox game should be an easy port to a PC, so long as the PC has an similarly powerful graphics subsystem. But if you target a game for the vast range of PC configurations from Intel 815 integrated chipset to whatever the top-of-the-line NVIDIA GPU is in 2001, it's unlikely to be that special on the Xbox. I suspect Microsoft is torn -- they'd like unique "franchise" games for the Xbox, but if the game leads to Windows sales as well, the'll take it.
Re:I've stayed out of the console market (Score:1)
Hey, if they ported NH to X-Box, it might be worth having. I wouldn't have to lug around a monitor with my hack machine. (I tell ya, it's not that easy to wheel my 486 and a 19-inch monitor all over the place just in case I have a few extra minutes...
Re:Some information (Score:1)
I'm wondering about those legacy PC bottlenecks on the xbox. It's on a x86 based processor going against a 100% 128-bit PS2 Emotion Engine that's got a main 300 mhz CPU and two vector coprocessors that blow Pentium III floating point ops out of the water.
You're forgetting a few things. Not only is the PIII over twice the speed of the PS2's CPU, it can also issue 4 SSE instructions every clock, effectively a vector processor in itself. I think you'd find its FP performance is faster, not slower, more than comparable to the PS2's CPU and 1 vector unit together..
The CPU won't have to do double duty on the graphics, either. The nVidia programmable T&L engine will do that, and reportedly faster than the PS2's vector units. Add to that the 4 DSPs assisting in the sound generation (Dolby Digital 5.1 with no CPU effort required
The XBox's RAM bandwidth should be more than sufficient for the 640x480 resolution that TV games will be running at, even considering the 2-3 GB/s used by the T&L and CPU. Dr. Michael Abrash wrote a very interesting article about that a little while ago. The PS2's VRAM is fast, but small - developers will have to go easy on the textures, or it'll get swamped by thrashing.
Re:I'm skeptical about the X-box (Score:2)
I will buy the Xbox the second it is released. I'm hearing the same from most of my friends. Even the lamers who think they're Bill Joy jr. because they run Linux.
Re:pressidant (Score:1)
bad mojo (Score:2)
why on earth would anyone want to buy closed hardware? to use with closed software? just because the imac did well, doesn't mean this thing will take the industry by storm.
in fact, if it does well, it could have a devastating effect on microsoft. let's face it, there are numerous hardware companies that can probably bring a better, faster, cheaper product to market than MS, and have it be an open standard (they wouldn't have misguided loyalty to der fuhrer)
MS has had awful luck with previous ventures into hardware. the only two devices that ever sold were the mouse and keyboard, which, as i recall, were invented elesewhere and BBB (bought by bill).
i stopped buying MS software/products in about 1993, after they settled with stac, cuz i don't buy products from illegal, lying corporations. i did buy a natural keyboard, tho. i just don't understand why anyone would use a microsoft anything, given a choice.
about a year ago, i stopped buying computer hardware -- mostly because of bill (and friends) outrageous behavior in a court of law. i really have no interest in spending any money on PC hardware or software until MS is basically destroyed.
here's hoping the Xbox will be another nail in the coffin. fortunately, i have enough put aside from my unix career that i'll be able to just walk away from it all in a year or so, even if bill is able to bribe/lie/cheat his way through his legal problems again.
Re:Wouldn't it be cool... (Score:1)
Today, Gravis, one of the finest soundcard manufacturers of the early nineties and pushing the limits in soundtechnology, makes joysticks and gamepads. C.L. was never interested in making hot new technology, or great soundcards for everybody to enjoy. It was only interested in protecting it's virtual standard-monopoly across the PC platform. Whenever people got too close, they were either forced out of the market, bought, or discouraged by surprisngly fastly upgrading their key technology.
This would probably be the point where you'd see a black cat miaauw, twice.
Re:I'm skeptical about the X-box (Score:1)
Microsoft doesn't even need to find new developers. Most PSX games have been ported to the PC. Sony won't be able to rely on their past success to sustain PSX2. They'll definately gain from the loyalty and name-brand respect they garnered from the original PSX, but that's not enough by itself.
Microsoft isn't a nobody either. The PC has become a major game platform. It used to be that PC games were imitations of console games. But now look how things have changed. People are playing Quake and Tomb Raider on consoles. And hardware in game consoles is now influenced by the PC market: the DC is using a PowerVR2, and Sony is including stuff like USB and hard drives. And Microsoft has stronger ties with PC hardware makers. Instead of porting existing technology, they have the advantage of being able to get newer technology on their platform before or at the same time it arrives on the PC. Of course Sony invents their own technology, but their stuff isn't successful unless it becomes a shared standard.
I'm not saying that Microsoft will beat Sony. But I think they definately have a chance at being very competitive. But I hope that M$ loses!
Re:you answered your own question... (Score:1)
Why is it that the dependence of the majority of consumers on Windows is considered apathy by the majority of non-Windows users? Guess what, Linux evangelists: Windows works fine for MOST people! Does it work perfectly? No way. Does Linux work perfectly? No way. BeOS? MacOS? Nuh uh. However, they all work for the purposes that people are putting them to. Fine, Linux is more stable. Fine, Linux handles networking better. But this idea that Windows is crushing productivity all over the country/world is ridiculous. People who install Windows and then install Office or Word Perfect and then use those programs (a plurality [sp] of consumers) are doing just fine.
In addition, do any of you know the costs associated with converting over to a new operating system in a medium- to large-sized business? While I don't have the figures (not an economist), the training alone would drain many valuable hours from employees who are already productive under their current systems.
Hell, I've seen people still using Windows 3.11 because it continues to serve their particular needs.
What does this mean for innovation? I don't know. I do know that, despite the paranoia rampant among the Linux community, nobody but Microsoft has an interest in their perpetual hegemony over the operating system market.
Most people, and most business, deal in percentages when dealing with the idea of this kind of sweeping change (changing operating systems). By what percentage is the productivity of my employees who are currently using Windows going to increase by moving over to Linux? By what percentage are my profits going to increase by adopting Linux? Unless the answers to those questions are significant, people are going to stick with what they now.
Look how long the NTSC and PAL standards for television transmission have lasted, despite the fact that capabilities could have been added, particularly over the last 20 years? Know why? Because they have worked well enough. Sure, we haven't had as detailed a television picture as we could have, but the picture was fine. Of course there was some static, but you just needed to get an antenna, cable or satellite dish. Hardware geeks lamented the fact that their televisions and monitors (particularly in the last 10 years) could handle more resolution and agitated for changes and HDTV is still coming slowly.
I think that Linux has the potential to gain a more significant share of the operating system market (particularly as compatibility and usability issues decrease in number), but you need to be patient. The PC world has been a Microsoft world for a long time, and that kind of inertia doesn't go away overnight.
If you can't be patient, then at least lose some of the condescending attitude toward the rest of the population, who feel that their work and play are getting done just fine.
Re:Wouldn't it be cool... (Score:1)
Great advances? (Score:2)
I have a sneaky suspicion that the X-box that will eventually come out of the pipe won't be the be-all and end-all that is being touted and that the premises (I won't call them promises, they are more like soggy dreams,) are going to seem like the other stains in somebody's shorts when something finally pours out of the pipe.
Life is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it. This is the same bunch that took six years to kludge up an OS (NT) that's still worse that what a kid in Finland managed with no budget but with a lot of friends
Re:Wouldn't it be cool... (Score:2)
Re:Wouldn't it be cool... (Score:1)
NVidia supply a kernel driver. Like the Aureal drivers, it's a few wrappers that interface with a binary object. If you find yourself having kernel problems when using it, it's unlikely that you'll get much support from the kernel developers because it's difficult to tell whether the bug's due to a problem with the kernel or a problem with NVidia's lump of code that is sitting in kernel space. NVidia also supply an XFree driver. Again, you're using a chunk of binary code with no source availability. One of the end results is that if XFree gets upgraded, there's no guarantee that your NVidia driver will work. Even if it does, it makes it harder to tell whether any strange crashes you have are due to bugs in XFree or bugs in NVidia's code.
By using binary drivers, you're throwing away a great deal of the support that makes free software useful. I was able to work around fundamentally broken hardware in a bunch of machines I once had to deal with due to the fact that I had the source available to me and the authors of that source were willing to talk to me about it. In the end it turned out to be a one line patch. The chances of me being able to do this sort of thing with closed drivers is approximately zero, and the chances of the hardware company providing me with a fix in the timescale I required (the machines arrived on a Thursday. The users were arriving on the Saturday) were not much better.
Not that I'm complaining about NVidia's hardware, of course. What I'm concerned about is that not everybody realises that by using these drivers they do lose one of the major advantages of free software and don't do a great deal to encourage hardware manufacturers to release specifications in future. It certainly doesn't do much to help people on non-i386 platforms.
Re:Wouldn't it be cool... (Score:2)
one eminem is enough.
Been there, done that, told not to, still will? (Score:4)
This would certainly not endear them to the DoJ, let alone lend credibility to their comical denial of monopolistic behavior. I keep expecting M$ to learn and shape up, but it's like there's pattern of behavior... Too bad Bill's not in California, we could possibly get him on the 3 strikes and cool him off in the pokey
Interesting side note (considering for a second the capacity at the XBox to do other than play games) The Register [theregister.co.uk] concerning the ditching of M$ ActiveTV [theregister.co.uk] by AT&T
It's all true! ±5%
Still my question is unanswered (Score:2)
1.2 adds 3d texture mapping, multi-texturing, new pixel formats, specular lighting, level-of-detail etc.
V1.3 is under proposal, though I can't find anything concrete about it.
But this is why I asked; what is D3D doing that's surpassing OpenGL?
The nick is a joke! Really!
DirectX and new feeatures (Score:4)
That said, I think GL has a superior implementation. It's just a shame that GL is withering away in the face of new feature developments, losing to the MS machine.
What ever happened to the new 3D API, called Farenheit, that was to be co-developed by MS and SGI? I remember it was announced not long after the GL vs. DX wars went into full swing, about 3 years ago. Where did that go?
PEDOPHILE WARNING! (Score:1)
Hardware alone can't carry a system.... (Score:2)
Microsoft's developers are all PC platform developers which means most of the games of the XBox are going to be nothing more than ports of PC Games (why wouldn't you just play them on the PC in the first place), whereas Sony has a huge developer base, experienced in developing CONSOLE titles. Sure, there's some overlap, some games play equally well on either console or PC, but some just flat out SUCK ported to console (Descent, Doom... need I say more?).
Just something to think about, the hardware alone cannot make the system. It takes software thats popular to drive a system to the top. Why do you think that the original playstation still has new titles coming out for it? It's certainly not the fastest/prettiest console out now... it's cause the system is popular, and it's popular cause it has a lot of games, and some extremely good ones.
It will be some time before the XBox gets enough really good titles behind it to do anything to the popularity of Sony's and Sega's systems.
Re:I'm skeptical about the X-box (Score:1)
It's been done before.
Upgradable? (Score:1)
Re:DirectX and new feeatures (Score:3)
The September OpenGL Architecture Review Board (ARB) meeting was held on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I'll pass along a few observations.
The way this problem is solved is to require anyone active in the ARB to sign an agreement stating that they'll simply disclose any proprietary interest they might have in features that are being considered for use in the API.
This is a good deal, in my opinion; you don't actually have to give up your rights to any intellectual property you might own, and you gain insurance that no one else will "submarine" a patented technology into the API. I encourage anyone who's interested in participating in the development of OpenGL to sign the agreement. [sgi.com] See the ARB FAQ link on this subject [sgi.com] for more information.
The flip-side is that if you haven't signed the agreement, you can't be included in the discussions, so there's no easy way to know what's actually going on. For example, you couldn't know much about the new features going into the API. :-)
You get the idea -- the bottom line is really pretty similar for the two APIs. Just because a feature is "in" D3D doesn't mean it actually works; just like in OpenGL, you need to test to see what works and be prepared to adapt your code to run on a particular chip or card.
This isn't a bad thing, in my opinion. As long as the hardware vendors are developing new features, there'll be differences between them that app developers have to live with. But the competition exposes new ideas and the market will eventually encourage the ones that are useful.
Oh, yeah, Fahrenheit. Long story there. Bottom line as I understand it: As far as Microsoft is concerned, D3D8 or 9 essentially is the Fahrenheit Low-Level API. SGI isn't participating in that effort any longer. The Fahrenheit Scene-Graph API exists, and you can actually buy it from Microsoft, but there's no support for it, so its future is uncertain.
Allen
Re:Funny you should say that... (Score:1)
Re:Great advances? (Score:1)
you answered your own question... (Score:4)
Which is *exactly* why Microsoft won't use it. "Cross Platform" gives them nightmares. MS's mission is to lock consumers into *their* products, *their* systems, and *their* way of doing things. That way consumers are forced to keep buying MS, no matter what sh*t the company puts out.
Cross Platform means easy migration, which is wonderful for consumers, and horrible for Microsoft. If you could easily pick up shop and take your business elsewhere, MS would be forced to provide a decent product to win your business. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world. I keep hoping that consumers will wake up and realize that MS's actions are not in their best interest, but that's probably asking too much.
I can dream, can't I?
--Lenny
Re:I'm skeptical about the X-box (Score:1)
I can go anywhere on earth and buy a sony radio or phone. The majority of the world's population is not computer enabled, think about it.
No open documentation? NO BUY nVidia! (Score:3)
The GeForce is quality hardware, but I won't spend a dime for a black box lacking proper documentation. Intelectual property my ass, this is a $400 card we're talking about! Can you imagine Ford claiming they can't document the internals of your new car because of "Intelectual Property" issues? Would you buy that car? Would you have bought an S-100 Dazler shipped without documetation?
I'm a long time Linux user, and let me say: after going through the undocumented video card mess from Diamond years back, nVidia gains no "loving affection" from me. The last thing I need is to be forced into a video card upgrade because nVidia stopped updating drivers for MY old card and nVidia can't release their "Intelectual Property" (read: documentation) to their customers. Been there once before, NOT AGAIN!
Re:I Just Dont get it (Score:1)
IMO, the best thing about console games is the ease of use. No worries about compatablity, tweaking environemnt variables, installation nightmares. Just open the box and put in the (cartridge/CD/holo-cube), and play.
As for the display on a tv, the display may not alway be that great, but just think how much a 60" monitor would cost, then check out the same size tv... Of course, you could always hook up your tv to the computer, but that leads to my third point. With console games, you've got a joystick for control, no more, no less. No worries about where to put the keyboard/mouse/joystick/external drives/other misc hardware. If I tried to set up my computer in the living room, we wouldn't have room for much of anything else. However, I've got about 6 or so consoles hidden in the tv stand, and they rarely get in the way.
Don't take me wrong, I love PC games, and could give plenty of benefits for them as well, but being a pc gamer yourself, I don't need to.
Re:No open documentation? NO BUY nVidia! (Score:2)
No XFree 3.3.X or Utah-GLX support for it. But it will have DRI supported under XFree 4.0
Re:ever heard of a game called HALO? (Score:1)
Oh, and Halo's been confirmed for the Mac at least.
No back-port to XFree-3.3.x, oh well... (Score:1)
Re:ever heard of a game called HALO? (Score:1)
I think MS was planning on making it an Xbox exclusive, but the rabid backlash from the Bungie fanbase was massive.
I hope they don't delay Halo until Xbox... By then, it might be outdated. If you've read any of Carmack's interviews about Doom 3, it seems he's brewing up a monster in graphical prowress.
- Amon CMB
Some information (Score:3)
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~nweaver/x box.html [berkeley.edu]
I'm wondering about those legacy PC bottlenecks on the xbox. It's on a x86 based processor going against a 100% 128-bit PS2 Emotion Engine that's got a main 300 mhz CPU and two vector coprocessors that blow Pentium III floating point ops out of the water.
For example, SquareSoft is trying to make their beat-em-up, The Bouncer, have Dolby Digital 5.1 support in gameplay. They used to think it was impossible, but it might not be so with the VU units. It seems MS just thought "Hey, we can beat 300 mhz easy!" without thinking about the hidden trump card in the PS2. Also, I noticed the 6.4 GB/sec memory bandwidth on the Xbox (shared, so it indludes video memory speed). And the PS2 has dedicated VRAM that flies at 48 GB/sec. So what do you guys think?
- Amon CMB
Re:pasty, pasties (Score:1)
Are you trying to tell me that men in New York take off their tops in strip bars? I always knew that place was flaky.
this year... (Score:1)
C'mon now... (Score:1)
Wouldn't it be cool... (Score:2)
Re:Wouldn't it be cool... (Score:1)
You'd get raped in jail so fast yo' ass would have treadmarks, beeeyotch!
PEACE!
Rumor has it (Score:1)
Southbridge Chipset for motherboards, now that would be cool and makes sense in the xbox contex.
I'm skeptical about the X-box (Score:2)
Microsoft taking on Sony?? You got to be kidding. Sony is the second most widely known name in the world (behind Coke). I don't think they're going to roll over anytime soon. I wouldn't be suprised if the X-box was Microsoft's Network Computer. Sorry Larry, the time wasn't right for that either...
What directX conspiracy? Sony is the name for game consoles. Have they even heard of Nvidia or DirectX?
Microsoft's money will help the rest of us here... (Score:3)
Vendors waiting for DX8 (Score:1)
Why wait for Microsoft to finally release API's
when you can start doing it now for Open Source.
Think how much more Blizzard would make if they
re-released all their titles for Linux and also had a hand in improving the API interfaces.
Gaming in Linux would take off like a rocket and leave toys like X-Box in the dust.
Re:Wouldn't it be cool... (Score:4)
Re:Great advances? (Score:1)
- America/democracy/capitalism/freedom at the time of the revolutionary war.
Granted, modern corporations often put the absolute best spin on things and thus fall short of such claims.Perl. *puts flamesuit on*
lots more...
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Re:Vendors waiting for DX8 (Score:2)
Re:Great advances? (Score:2)
It doesn't have to make great advances. That's just Microsoft's hype (really part of everything they do). I think the most interesting thing I've read about the X-Box was written by Robert X Cringely:
A Shot Across the Bow [pbs.org]
Quick summary of the article: they're basically fighting to keep Windows a monopoly. They feel threatened by the potential of Sony's Playstation 2. They will fight hard and dirty in this fight and use up a huge amount of resources. They win if they keep Sony out of the PC space and leave them in their game's space.
Re:I'm skeptical about the X-box (Score:3)
I haven't been keeping up. (Score:3)
At least, I'm separating DirectX from Direct3d, because comparing the sound libraries of DirectX is meaningless.
If I'm not mistaken, all of the progress in Direct3d, from v1-v6 was to *catch* up to OpenGL.
Which means, as of D3d6, MS is starting to reach parity with OpenGL.
Which features are you talking about, in terms of GL, is M$ overtaking them? GL does rely on vendor extensions because it makes sense; each vendor will *want* to supply optimizations and features that they have, and when everyone else has those features, the GL board will increment the version number and include that feature into the set.
M$'s way is to implement in software mode, what isn't found in hardware, isn't it? That's not terribly useful, actually, if software can't keep up, and if software can keep up, then there is no need for there to be vendor implementations, right? So software supplied multi-pass texture is useless in this light.
So as far as I can tell, GL isn't behind and M$ isn't actually doing all that much.
The nick is a joke! Really!
Humor impared (Score:2)
Re:Nvidia is crazy! (Score:1)
senseless prediction made by people like me tend to disturb the Force
Re:Upgradable? (Score:1)
Re:I'm skeptical about the X-box (Score:2)
The point is not whether Sony will roll over or not, it's whether Microsoft has what it takes to reach critical mass with a game console. And my answer is that if they execute well, there's no reason why they can't suceed. They have all the necessary ingredients: brand, technology, money, experience and motivation. And sorry to break it to the evil-empire contigent, but so far they seem to be doing everything right.
OpenGL as vendor extensions faster than DirectX (Score:3)
But this is why I asked; what is D3D doing that's surpassing OpenGL?
As far as I can tell, nothing. All the 3D accelerated functions available on my NVIDIA card are exposed under the OpenGL 1.2 spec, GL_ext_ extensions or on NVIDIA specific extensions - GL_NV_. This is of course on Linux using the NVIDIA drivers and the NVIDIA GL/gl.h etc. headers converted to Linux. In many respects the functionality of the card is available faster on OpenGL than DirectX because the Vendor specific extensions do not have to go through the OpenGL ARB before being implemented, whereas vendors are dependent on DirectX being releases with their own extensions built in.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Re:I'm skeptical about the X-box (Score:1)
Microsoft may be the second most widely known brand in the world, but that link doesn't even come close to proving it. Read their Criteria and Methodology [interbrand.com]. Their rating brand value, not name recognition. So people buy Microsoft products because it is Microsoft more often than they buy Sony products because they are Sony products. This does not mean that the Microsoft name is more widely recognized than Sony's is.
I've heard that John Deere is actually the second most well known brand, though I don't even pretend I have any proof for that.
More imagery ... (Score:1)
Re:I'm skeptical about the X-box (Score:1)
My reply was brand name recognition. That transcends everything. Sony is the second most widely recoginized name in the world. Period, not in "computer related circles only." Ask any marketer what the top brand names are. My repsonse was to point out that you are in fact wrong.
I agree that microsoft can certainly succeed. My point is that Microsoft is going to have a much tougher time bullying Sony than they did Oracle or Netscape, ie what conspiracy and who cares about Nvidia and DirectX8? Both Microsoft and Sony have their main source of revenue from something other than gaming. It's an equal playing field. Both have billions to spend. Both have experience in the gaming industry. The winner will be determined by the massess.
Re:I'm skeptical about the X-box (Score:1)
Re:Funny you should say that... (Score:1)
Re:Funny you should say that... (Score:1)
I'm all for burying trolls, but for goodness sake, have a sense of humor.
Re:DirectX and new feeatures (Score:1)
Expect this problem to get worse rather than better as more esoteric features come on stream that stray farther and farther from the GL 'core'. Sure, eventually the ARB sweeps up and standardises everything, but that can take a pretty long time.
Example: NV_register_combiners. An insanely complicated extension for NVidia hardware that pretty much does the job that D3D pixel shaders are supposed to do. But the NV extension is built in such away that it's almost never going to be implementable by other vendors (since it's basically just a register dump rather than sensible abstraction). So with GL you'll have to contend with that, along with whatever schemes get cooked up by ATI, 3dfx, and the rest.
Essentially, GL is now an open API in name only. The hardware vendors are basically just building their own private little proprietary APIs out of extensions and evangelising them like crazy, all the while claiming to be supporting open standards.
Re:I've stayed out of the console market (Score:1)
Microsoft maintains that the starting price of the X-Box will be competitive with other consoles (especially PS2), so that places it at $300. Really, when you think about it, they can't sell it for anything higher than that; the market has certain expectations for console prices.
X-Box has a mascot, her name is Raven [xbox.com] (there's a few pics on that page). I'm sure we can expect to see her in a few games.
And here [xbox.com] is a list of X-Box developers. The only major console game company I can think of that's missing from there is Squaresoft, who is pretty tight with Sony.
Re:DirectX and new feeatures (Score:1)
Two, with respect to register combiners, the NVIDIA representative to the ARB stated that the current way of doing this is dead-end technology and there will be new extensions proposed for handling pixel shading. D3D "standardized" too early and will have to throw out the previous-generation way of doing things. This is exactly the situation vendor-specific OpenGL extensions are intended to handle; making functionality available without misleading people as to the possibility that it will survive in the long term.
Life is complicated in the graphics business. As long as hardware keeps changing, there are going to be tradeoffs between availability and stability. Sometimes D3D is going to get lucky, and sometimes OpenGL is going to get lucky, but everyone needs to understand the situation more thoroughly than they do now.
I find your definition of "open" to be somewhat confused. The specs for OpenGL, including the extensions, are available to anyone; there's an open process for changing the standardized portions of them; anyone can extend the API without permission of a central authority; open-source implementations are available and anyone can distribute them on any OS. That's much more than "open in name only" and contrasts quite significantly with D3D (for example).
Allen
Re:DirectX and new feeatures (Score:1)
But I agree with you, it's all pretty scary. That's why the participation agreements exist.
Re:I'm skeptical about the X-box (Score:2)
Why doesn't someone cite the *evidence* to the contrary, rather than just blowing wind?
Re:I'm skeptical about the X-box (Score:1)
Oh, I just followed the link. I see that Gilette is a more valuable brand than Sony. Which is somehow an advantage when it comes to selling consoles, right?
Microsoft's also the world's second largest game publisher
Good grief, that can't be right can it? Bigger than EA, Eidos, Infogrames, Sega, Sony, Nintendo? I accuse you of totally making that up.
Informative my arse.
Typical QC Rant (Score:1)
On a more serious note... Microsoft's Xbox will punch the PC industry in the nuts
At least Hemos didn't say it this time
That's why I read Slashdot... (Score:3)
--Ty
Can someone fill me in? (Score:3)
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
I've stayed out of the console market (Score:2)
Also, are there any major game makers planning on developing for the X-Box? Maybe an X-Box only type game? Like Mario is only for Nintendo, something like that?
Come to think of it, I wonder if the X-Box will have a mascot? Maybe a cute little Borg!
Umm, forbidden donut (Score:1)
I think you mean pastry.
-Homer
How about some Snow Crash? (Score:1)
--meredith
Re:That's why I read Slashdot... (Score:1)
over the pasty year
--
Re:Vendors waiting for DX8 (Score:1)
Funny you should say that... (Score:2)
may I have your attention please,
will the real bruce perens please stand up,
I repeat will the real bruce perens please stand up
.....we're gonna have a problem here.........
Ya'll act like you never seen a slash poster before
mouse all on the floor
like mom and daddy just burst in the door
and started whoopin yer ass worse than before
they first had endorsed
buyin' ya a crappy computer (aaaaaah)
It's the return of the...
"awww..wait, no wait, you're kidding,
he didn't just say what I think he did,
did he?"
and Mr. Cray said...
nothing you idiots, Mr Cray's dead
he's locked in my bassment
microsoft women love Sig '11
chicka chicka chicka bruce perens,
"I'm sick of him, lookit him
walkin around, grabbin his GNU know what
flippin' to GNU know who"
"yeah, but he's so smart though"
yeah, I probably got a couple of screws up in my head loose
but no worse than what's goin on in your sister's webcam (eheheheh)
sometimes, I wanna get on ZD and just let loose
but cant, but it's cool for RMS to hump a dead GNU
My mouse is on your link, My mouse is on your link
and if you're lucky, I might just give it a little click
and that's the message that we deliver to little kids
and expect them not to know what a free software is
of course they're gonna know what Microsoft is
by the time they hit 4th grade
they got MS-NBC, dont they?
we ain't nothing but omnivores
well, some of us carnivores
who read other people's mail like crackwhores
but if we can read your e-mail like it's available
then there's no reason that a man can't forge spam from your account
but if you feel like I feel, I got the antedote
trolls wave your penis birds, sing the chorus and it goes........
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so won't the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
Sig 11 don't got to cuss in his posts to get Karma
well I do, so fuck him and fuck you too
you think I give a damn about my Karma
half of you trolls can't even stomach me, let alone stand me
"but bruce, what if you win, wouldn't it be weird"
why? so you guys can just lie to get me here
so you can sit me here next to Natalie here
shit,Enoch Root's momma better switch me chairs
so I can sit next to trollmastah and Post First
and hear em argue over who modded it down first
little troll, flamed me back on IRC
"yeah, he's fast, but I think he types one-handed, hee hee"
I should download some audio on MP3
and show the world how you released it BSD (aaaaaah)
I'm sick of you little troll and l33t groups
all you do is annoy me
so I have been sent here to destroy you
and there's a million of us just like me
who post like me, who just don't give a fuck like me
who code like me, walk, talk and act like me
and just might be the next best thing, but not quite me......
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so won't the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
I'm like a head trip to listen to
cause I'm only givin you things
you troll about with your friends inside you rabbit hole
the only difference is I got the balls to say it
in front of ya'll and I aint gotta be false or sugar coated at all
I just get on the web and spit it
and whether you like to admit it (riiip)
I just shit it better than 90% you trollers out can
then you wonder how can
kids eat up these posts like gospel verse
it's funny,cause at the rate I'm going when I'm thirty
I'll be the only person in the chat rooms flirting
cyberin with nurses when I'm jackin off to porno's
and I'm jerkin' but this whole bag of viagra isn't working
in every single person there's a bruce perens lurkin
he could be workin at Micron Inc., spittin on your SDRAM
or in the printer queue, flooding, writin I dont give a fuck
with his windows down and his system up
so will the real perens please stand up
and click 1 of those fingers till you drag up
and be proud to be outta your mind and outta control
and 1 more time, loud as you can, how does it go?
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
haha guess it's a bruce perens in all of us........
fuck it let's all stand up
Re:Vendors waiting for DX8 (Score:1)
Re:I've stayed out of the console market (Score:2)
Of course, currently on both consoles and PCs, there lacks games that offer nearly random play in single-player mode, ala Tetris or Astroids. Age of Empires II has a random game mode, and the revamped Reach for the Stars has a random mode as well, but there need to be more of these.
Re:Why wait for DX8 when there's OpenGL? (Score:1)
If you want to go that route, OpenGL, at version 1.2, is 5.8 versions behind DirectX 7.0a! Wow, Microsoft sure rules!
Direct3D just got caught up to OpenGL 1.1 in 6.x, IIRC. The "new features" in DX7 and DX8 are mostly already present in OpenGL, or they're bogged down in some standards body.
DirectX is also a lot more than just a 3D API; I'm always amazed at people comparing "DirectX" (which is a hole bag of stuff) vs. OpenGL (which is just a 2D/3D graphics API).
Re:I remember when Bill Gates was on Larry King Li (Score:2)
It's all true! ±5%
Not just for teenage boys... (Score:2)
First of all, not all games are made for the 13 year old hyperactive destructive kid (and I don't believe all of that media bullshit which tells us that violent games make kids violent; you can tell what is real by the age of 3..). There are actually games which are calm, and require some thought. I'm not saying it's gonna make you a genius or be harder than your Robust Digital Signal Processing class, but they aren't made to be for the twitchy-fingered young-uns.
Second, you might notice who plays the games: there are actually a lot of people in their 20s or 30s who play games, and they play all kinds of games. However, I must say that it is true that most young gamers do play twitchy games....
Oh. And there are Barbie games, as well as, gasp, a Barbie printer! It's sooooooo cute!
Ahem.
Just tryin' to defend us gamers some... Hyuk....
Fnord.
Quake 3 Arena! [q3arena.com]
Diablo 2 [battle.net]
Counter Strike!!! [counter-strike.net]
The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind! [morrowind.com]
Re:Funny you should say that... (Score:1)
Re:Vendors waiting for DX8 (Score:1)
That made pretty good sense, right up until the word 'Glide'. OpenGL's extension mechanism allows vendors to expose groovy new features without having to wait for Microsoft to rev the API. In fact, nVidia is already doing this [nvidia.com].
But Glide? It provides no functionality that isn't already available through DX5-7 and it only runs on Voodoo hardware. And Linux? As a replacement for a gaming console? [makes indignant sputtering noises] I think you should have stopped typing after the word 'OpenGL'.
Re:Typical QC Rant (Score:1)
Re:I'm skeptical about the X-box (Score:2)
Slightly busted. Microsoft's only the second-largest *PC* game publisher, according to PC Data [pcdata.com] (click on "more lists" and checkbox your way down to PC game software). Microsoft doesn't publish for consoles.
Given that xbox is a hybrid of a PC and a console, I don't really know which market is most relevent in establishing Microsoft's brand. But they are indeed huge, even in games, as I hope I've proven.
Sick of the Xbox (Score:1)
Re:Funny you should say that... (Score:1)
Re:I'm skeptical about the X-box (Score:1)
Microsoft's X-Box will win through numbers of developers. Hell, crappy shareware programmers will test out making games for this console. There will be a lot of crap, but by calling it a console (when it aims to be a fully fledged pseudo-PC) is the key point.
Re:They need more female friendly games (Score:2)
So do a lot of women...
I think, if you look at the amount of time spent behind a keyboard by gender division, you'd find the amount of games purchasers/players are consistent with the PC home users figures.