Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!scea!greg_labrec@interactive.sony.com
From: mperdue@iquest.net (Mario Perdue)
Newsgroups: scea.yaroze.programming.gnu_compiler
Subject: Re: Good value for seeding the RNG
Date: Tue, 27 May 1997 10:46:18 GMT
Organization: SCEA Net Yaroze News
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On Mon, 26 May 1997 19:49:26 GMT, paulk@anon.nymserver.com (Paul
Kearns) wrote:

>..., I'm looking for a decent number to seed the random number generator 
>with.  I've always used the real time clock when working with computers, but 
>there doesn't appear to be such a thing on the Playstation.
>

Paul,

How are you planning to seed the random number generator? The only
function I'm aware of is rand() and it's defined as:

	long rand( void )

so that won't work. Unless you've written your own random number
generator, like I did in Spaceguy. I never bothered to seed it in that
program. If I was worried about randomness I would probably re-seed
the RNG every time a button was pressed. As a seed I would try using a
tick counter or even the next generated random number. This technique
has worked well for me in the past. It doesn't really help from a cold
start though.

Mario