Hello Jonathan ! 
 JF> But the problem is that PC developers DO get the ability to
 JF> familiarize themselves with hardware, or at least its code.  Epic
 JF> Megagames got the MMX instructions back when the chips themselves
 JF> were still in R & D.  I believe Microsoft sends out Direct3D SDKs for
 JF> a new version before it's publicly available.  And OpenGL?  Well,
 JF> that's been around for years, and you can add your own features
 JF> without requiring a total rewrite or forcing hardware upgrades.
 JF> I do have some proof.  Look at Interstate '76 Arsenal.  Its code is
 JF> fully optimized and 3D-accelerated; you get real-time shadows that
 JF> hug the ground, vast terrain, well-done physics, and dynamic
 JF> lighting.  You know, most PSX games don't have all of those in one
 JF> package.  :-)
:) I still think the /majority/ of PC developers *don't* produce effient 
stuff, though this is most probably the fault of MicroBloat O/S and the 
developement tools. My friend in London is (hopefully) going to be 
programming the next (Fifth) generation dev tools.
 JF> The PC has plenty of cool games, and (unlike the PSX) you can use it
 JF> for a lot more than just gaming!  When was the last time you fired up
 JF> a Web browser on your PSX so that you could download a good add-on
 JF> for Quake II that you could play with a dozen or so people?
When was the last time I fired up the TV to cook some dinner? The PSX is 
engineered for one purpose: games, if it was engineered to web browse it 
could, but it isn't, so it won't.
 JF> What WAS is last release, and when?  From what I've seen of Virus 2K,
 JF> it should be worth looking at.
Frontier: Elite 2 or the sequel to that, if there was one, Frontier was the 
buggiest game of all time, several fixes were released and it ran like a dog 
with only one leg. It sucked Big Time.
 JF> And haven't you just driven a nail into your own coffin?  If a person
 JF> such as him considers the PC much more viable with the kind of code
 JF> you describe, then shouldn't an even more efficient programmer (if
 JF> Braben even programs) get even more out of the PC?
There are no effient programmers producing PC games atm, all games are team 
efforts, produced by masses of people and all bloated as heck.
 JF> That wasn't quite what I meant.  I think one or two of the current
 JF> 3Dfx people actually came from SGI, and wanted to give that kind of
 JF> 3D horsepower to PC gamers.  They developed their own, unique chipset,
 JF> so you can't really say that it shares the same ancestry as the
 JF> N64.
Same mindset behind the technology though? :) 
 JF> Yes, yes it is!  It actually uses the Voodoo 1 chipset.  I'm not sure
 JF> if there were any enhancements to it beyond that, but it' still
 JF> pretty impressive.
I ain't seen it though. :-/
 JF> No, it doesn't really add much to the gameplay - yet.  What it does
 JF> do right now is add to the heavy Blade Runner atmopshere.  But future
 JF> games can take advantage of it - imagine a game where most every
 JF> switch or button is unique; imagine one where there's a "skin" for
 JF> every possible character status (ex. armoured, a hurt arm, and so
 JF> on).  Also, some games will just need so much texture memory that,
 JF> without AGP, they may stutter.  id Software's Trinity might!
Stutter? And you look forward to a time when a game is too 
complex/bloated/advanced that the hardware can't even cope?!! 
 JF> And as for resources, AGP doesn't take much.  It stores the unneeded
 JF> textures in system memory, which (assuming you have a decent 32+ MB
 JF> of RAM) won't impact things in the slightest.
Woopy do. Its just another tool to try and make the glorified Babbage 
Difference Engine play games. ;)
CheeryBye
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