rec.autos.simulators

--

"but then again we were what they call spazes and nerds in highschool
 and  are now ***s who play computer games and if you are honest
 recognize you wouldnt want anyone you know from say work to see you
 sitting in a dark room playing games like little boys.
 we ALL are sad. you AND me."
-Very3 on the appeal of computer games to the mature gamer.

8-)

PAPA DOC

Pierre PAPA DOC Legrand
Flanker Target
Grand Prix Legends Crash Test Dummy
Rants, Bullshit and Help Guides availible at
www.papadoc.net

Thanks...

Warbirds, Air Warrior, Nascar4...are not sorely lacking in either
graphics or multiplayer. But to me thats not the epitome of game
engines, just as Quake 3 is not the be all end all in engines. To me
its having an engine that is efficient enough to support the kinds of
graphics that one see's in sims such as Flanker 2.0, Janes F/A-18,
World War 2 fighters, Falcon 4 along with the incredible amounts of AI
calculations and realism. You want these to be counted in different
categories and yet its impossible to do so since its intergral to the
game itself. And as far as numbers of objects flying around in the
game at once I dont think any first person shooter is gonna equal what
I can see in sims such as the aforementioned sims. Hell Im playing a
mission in Flanker tonight that has over 80 aircraft a dozen ships and
a dozen SAM sites....all the while this is playing the graphics are
simply astounding with a very large arena being displayed. This is a
terrific engine in my book....an engine that takes into account not
only eye candy but also gameplay.

PAPA DOC

Pierre PAPA DOC Legrand
Flanker Target
Grand Prix Legends Crash Test Dummy
Rants, Bullshit and Help Guides availible at
www.papadoc.net

Incidently I heard that they upgraded their code to the Quake II
engine midway though development.  It would explain the bad netcode, I
thought Quakeworlds was shit hot compared to Quake IIs.  Quake IIs
netcode was rubbish until they patched it about 20 times.

--

remove the OBVIOUS to reply by mail

Maybe I've confused Q1 netcode with Quakeworlds, in that case - the two
did come up in a discussion of HL netcode, with the decision to build
based on one of them as the source of all it's problems...

The upgrade to the Q2 engine is untrue, afaik - what I heard was that
Valve were offered Q2,  but didn't have the money/time to recode to make
licensing it worthwhile.

There's no mention of Q2 in HQH's Half-Life FAQ;

"[2.1.10]: Game Engine

Valve originally licensed the source for Quake from id Software and they
began working on that code around October of 1996. Between that time and
the time they finished Half-Life in October of 1998, they
modified/removed/created something like 70% of the code."

http://www.halflife.net/help/hqhfaq/split_faq_2.html

You guys are sooooo out there.

ATI is trading at about 3 bucks, and just reported today MAJOR
earnings warnings.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/010301/to053.html

NVIDIA is trading in the 40's and is producing record profits.

They also just completely swept ATI out of the Mac business.

The partnership with the Evil Empire (MS) will insure future growth
and development

NVIDIA wins because they deliver.  3DFX did not, ATI is not, Matrox is
not.

Instead of bashing Nvidia, you should at least admire their track
record.  

Capitalism at its best.  You guys make it sound like a conspiricy.

Sheesh....

Braun

http://www.planethalflife.com/half-life/guide/faq.shtm#Is%20Half-Life...

It doesnt' say whether they actually USED it or not but they could use
the Quake II engine.  My point really was that I started playing
online with Quake.  When Quake II came out I tried it and I found that
Quakeworlds netcode was much smoother, which basically stopped me
playing it seriously.  I went back after they patched it to see how
good it was and I think tehy had improved it a lot, but like quite a
few Quake players it didn't appeal to me.

I don't think you did confuse the netcode btw, Quake without
Quakeworld was really just LAN netcode, no prediction or any of the
other saviours of the modemer we know now ;-)  I don't think half life
was ever THAT bad.

If its a common misconception though I think the only way to be sure
would be to get the info off Valve and they just say "ID Software
technology" so maybe it a little but of both.

--
to reply by mail, please remove the OBVIOUS

I agree fully.  Competition from AMD is what made Intel radically
change their pricing structure.  Only because of AMD can you buy a
PIII 850 for about $150.00 nowadays.

OTOH...in my opinion, Nvidia is NOT predatory like other companies.
They have made their bones by excelling at every turn.  They have
brought innovation to the market, and visuals to our PC's that we
never dreamed possible.

I can only hope that they will not choose to monopolize their
position.  The good thing is we don't HAVE to have that GeForce III.
Let the market speak if the pricing is too high, but do not blame
Nvidia.  As stated before they make the chips, not the cards.

MHO,

Braun

Didn't you say you were going to 'gracefully bow out of this
discussion' several posts ago?

 - George

NVIDIA is extremely pleased to provide developers with NVIDIA's SDK
for DirectX? 8.0 development within hours of Microsoft's release. Our
engineering teams have worked very closely with Microsoft in
developing and tuning core functionality for this new, world-class
API. In particular, we expect you to find the programmability of the
graphics pipeline a defining moment in the history of real-time
graphics. For the first time, developers have a standard way to access
features such as programmable geometry or vertex shaders, programmable
pixel shaders, volumetric texture compression for 3D textures, and
support for high order surfaces.

Look back through the whole thread..