Bill Gates unveils Vista editions, impersonates teapot. - by R Soul
ignatios on 22/5/2006 at 13:44
Quote Posted by descenterace
stuff
Okay, but it's not going to be the leap that 3D-accelerated Quake was from software Quake. Don't get me wrong; I agree with you that it's silly to keep drawing this stuff in software when cards have been able to do it for a long time. However, for the average computer user, it's not that big of a deal. Is there any benefit? Absolutely. Does it matter enough to make a fuss? Unless you're doing a lot of CPU-intensive stuff, no.
ZylonBane on 22/5/2006 at 13:50
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
I live in a crazy alternate reality with something called Emulation Mode.
And yet, many people have trouble getting Dark Engine games to run under XP anyway. Imagine that.
Agent Monkeysee on 22/5/2006 at 14:50
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
Apparently you guys are posting from some crazy alternate-reality version of TTLG that DOESN'T have a sticked FAQ in the Thief forum with pages of tips on getting Thief to run under 2000 and XP.
The only trick I've ever had to use on XP is that -lgntforce or whatever the hell that flag is to get the installer to stop bitching about the NT kernel. Beyond that Thief and Thief 2 have worked without a hitch.
Quote Posted by descenterace
Each window location is defined by three numbers. That's 3D. Graphics cards are designed to do z-ordering as a hardware operation; doing it on the CPU makes no sense when this capability is available.
Semantically speaking yes that's 3D but GUI window rendering bears no resemblance to what people mean, or what 3D processors do, when referring to 3D rendering.
Anyway I've read that the Vista GUI layer is actually using vector graphics. I don't know what affect that would have on the sort of rendering engine one would use but that might have something to do with it.
David on 22/5/2006 at 15:08
There are quite a few problems that can occur with Windows 2000 XP and most of them are due to technology improvements.
Dual core (and dual processor) systems play havoc with the Dark Engine. Around 18 months ago both nVidia and ATI made similar changes to their drivers which cause a lot of fatal errors in the dark engine and there are few new problems popping up every now and again.
Now, most of these are easy to get round - set Thief to launch with 1CPU, add a line to a config file, but these are things that are not obvious to the vast amount of computer users.
If you are just a regular computer user then the Dark Engine games can be a right pain in the backside to get running.
WingedKagouti on 22/5/2006 at 17:12
Quote Posted by descenterace
Each window location is defined by three numbers. That's 3D. Graphics cards are designed to do z-ordering as a hardware operation; doing it on the CPU makes no sense when this capability is available.
There are more calculations involved when z-ordering an object with volume when compared to something flat (as a window or other 2d image). A dynamic camera doesn't reduce the amount of calculations either.
Doing it on the CPU makes tons of sense since it's fairly simple compared to what's happening in games. Even stuff like Wolfenstein 3D.
1) (In buffer) Draw the background (2d image).
2) (In buffer) Draw rear window (2d image), painting over the background.
3) (In buffer) Draw the next closest window (2d image), painting over anything behind it.
4) Until front window drawn, go to 3.
5) Flip buffer to screen.
With 3d images/objects you also have to calculate for each object that is rendered (at the very least):
1) Which parts of the object are closer to the camera than the others.
2) What angles the various parts are compared to the camera.
3) Any textures need to be distorted to look right compared to the surface they cover and the camera.
If the UI is still basically 2d then there's no reason to burden the GPU with anything at all.ZylonBane on 22/5/2006 at 18:05
Quote Posted by WingedKagouti
Doing it on the CPU makes tons of sense since it's fairly simple compared to what's happening in games. Even stuff like Wolfenstein 3D.
1) (In buffer) Draw the background (2d image).
2) (In buffer) Draw rear window (2d image), painting over the background.
3) (In buffer) Draw the next closest window (2d image), painting over anything behind it.
4) Until front window drawn, go to 3.
5) Flip buffer to screen.
This process only happens on a full screen refresh. When just manipulating existing windows, the affected apps are informed by the OS what regions of their client window(s) need updating (known as "dirty rectangles").
Epos Nix on 22/5/2006 at 19:29
Quote:
If the UI is still basically 2d then there's no reason to burden the GPU with anything at all.
So it's better to have the CPU do all the dirty work and let the GPU idle than to allow the GPU to take off some of the load so the CPU can perform other (more critical) functions?
Why not make use of ALL your hardware, or as much as the system needs, at any given moment rather than let some of it idle unnecessarily? :weird:
WingedKagouti on 22/5/2006 at 19:34
Quote Posted by Epos Nix
So it's better to have the CPU do all the dirty work and let the GPU idle than to allow the GPU to take off some of the load so the CPU can perform other (more critical) functions?
Why not make use of ALL your hardware, or as much as the system needs, at any given moment rather than let some of it idle unnecessarily? :weird:
Because the GPU isn't optimized for such simple operations.
Epos Nix on 22/5/2006 at 19:52
D'ya suppose DX10 is gonna rectumfy that?
