Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!news From: sosman@terratron.com (Steven Osman) Newsgroups: scea.yaroze.freetalk,scee.yaroze.freetalk.english Subject: Re: Net Yaroze 2 ? Please. Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 03:28:34 GMT Organization: PlayStation Net Yaroze (SCEE) Lines: 117 Message-ID: <37428cdc.526985765@news.playstation.co.uk> References: <7gaug1$2mq3@scea> <7gpfti$iko2@chuka.playstation.co.uk> <37304b8c.2367490@www.netyaroze-europe.com> <7gqkr0$iko4@chuka.playstation.co.uk> <7gp65b$iko1@chuka.playstation.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.27.57.69 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 Xref: chuka.playstation.co.uk scea.yaroze.freetalk:1393 scee.yaroze.freetalk.english:4049 Robert, If I may add my two cents... I quoted your entire message and Toby's excerpts because I think they are rather relevant to the "big picture". You argue that people spend most of their CPU doing graphics, that people push their machine for graphics, and that we really should focus on more team work to bring more professional looking games to the world. Now, considering what Toby said about more levels of abstraction, let me suggest this: 1. More layers of abstraction means that only a handful of us need to worry about nitty-gritty graphical optimization 2. Not worrying about nitty-gritty graphical optimization may mean that we can worry about writing a better game. 3. Because in its current state, graphics really dominate the game development process (meaning, we have to squeeze every CPU clock we can to get decent results), we can't write games where the graphical code aren't intertwined in the source, and totally dominating the direction of the program. This makes it harder for a cooperative effort, since you can't as easily section off work. With a faster machine with a few more clocks to spare, we could not be completely paranoid about every last bit of juice. Maybe that way we can come up with playstation-like games on a playstation 2 (yes, I said that right), instead of writing atari games on a playstation! The funny thing is that my points all go against my philosophy, but in this case, we're in as hobbyists. I keep complaining that though PC's are 1000's times faster than when I got my first one, software doesn't run any faster. Its all bloated and useless. Frankly, that is because in today's market, software vendors have become extremely lazy, whereas back in the days they used to spend much more time optimizing code than writing it. Now the just hack whatever they want in there. I sneer at this philosophy, but considering our position as hobbyists, with somewhat smaller aspirations, there is no reason we cannot do this. There is no reason why, once given good hardware to handle the overhead, some people cannot write really awesome graphical routines, others really awesome sound routines, and hey, let the visual basic programmers out there write half decent games (and those of us who program by higher standards, well, we can write really good games). Steven On Thu, 06 May 1999 14:14:17 GMT, yaroze@theburrow.co.uk (Barry & Robert Swan) wrote: >On 6 May 1999 07:09:55 GMT, tjs@cs.monash.edu.au (Toby Sargeant) >wrote: > >>Regarding ease of use, the whole point of a faster machine is that you can >>afford more levels of abstraction, thus making it easier, rather than harder, >>to program for. > >Very true. But regardless of how powerful the machine, it can only do >so much for you. If the Yaroze had the power of a PC cpu, Im not sure >there would be any more intelligent collision detection than bounding >box/ spheres etc. And these can be done on a speccy... Where are the >solid state mechanics and stuff? Animation is another area... and I'm >worried people think we should all be at that level, which is rubbish. >My 'demos' are exactly the same as most other things on this site; >same old game but with 'better' graphics. And in my case this is >because of vanity on my part and wanting stuff to look good, and also >Im aware that to follow one of those routes is a big area, one that >doesn't have the instant nice results as of doing a decent landscape >routine. So instead of ploughing into meaty areas of maths and stuff >we concentrate on the graphics which is completely valid for ourselves >but we would not necassarily benefit from an upgrade to NY2 by the >same measure we would if trying to follow those maths-intensive areas. > > >>Regarding the fact that noone's pushed a yaroze to its limits, I think it's >>worthwhile to note that pushing a machine to its limits requires a lot of hard >>work and time, and as such tends to be a demotivating factor. The 3 main things >>that the PS2 offers over the PSX, that I think everyone would consider a >>benefit are the FPU, increased CPU speed and increased memory (and the >>possibility of better memory management). > >well, i push the machine to its limits in terms of memory and gpu/ >gte, but reckon that only about 5% of the cpu time is used for non >graphics stuff. Show me a Yaroze game that is different is what Id >say... > >>Regardless of any of this, I don't really understand why there's a need to >>'prove' that we're worthy of an NY2 program. I can't see any way in which the >>original NY program has hurt Sony (In fact, I think that even if the results >>have been ... sparse ..., the publicity ias been _good_). Also, we certainly >>didn't have to prove anything when we signed up for the first NY program, so >>that obviously wasn't a criterion for Sony to start with. I'll be a little >>upset if it has become one now. > >You are right really. We paid for the NY we do what we want from it. >And generally we are all happy with it. But from a business model Im >not sure it has been worth it for Sony; some good publicity for what >amounts to a pain in the arse for them. I disagree with businesses >being run merely for profit and yet I cant argue if that is how they >choose to run. NY2 for home users I think would leave a lot of people >with a more expensive piece of kit than NY, and with not much better >results from it. Working in teams I think should be the way to catch >up with pro dev houses, not working with more powerful hardware, and >would teach you skills worth more in the industry. (if you desire >those) > >PS George; If I did a pda game for Yaroze then it would be hard to >justify stopping it (although undoubtedly it would be!) Would not be >giving any away any more stuff than you could get from any other >commercial pda game. > >Rob