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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:30
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
The one big problem with that is game developers have no idea what hardware configurations that the games will be run on. Now, of course, the operating system is supposed to provide an identical virtual machine for all other programs to run under, but that's just in theory. Windows has never been good at that, plus DirectX is like a gigantic hole in your virtual machine.  Sure, it speeds up the games by allowing direct access to hardware, but of course insulation from hardware is one of the main purposes of an operating system. Yay MS. |
Well thats interesting. Its Microsoft, as much as anyone else, that has an interest in assuring additional PC sales. To the extent that making PC games more user friendly will result in more PC gamers, and thus in more people inclined to a shorter replacement cycle for their PC's, it would seem that MS would have a strong incentive to improve Windows in that regard.
I was thinking more along the following lines though - why couldnt say a big manufacturer like Dell reach an agreement with several software publishers that all standard Dells will have certain configurations - and then the publisher could test on that configuration and label it "dell certified" or something. If that is too hard, how about designating certain Dells as "gaming standard machines" and then issuing certificates relative to that standard. Im trying to think of a way that the market might move toward at least some degree of standardization, driven by market forces.
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Asher
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Calgary, Alberta
Nov 1999
time: 22:30
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Windows has never been good at that, plus DirectX is like a gigantic hole in your virtual machine. Sure, it speeds up the games by allowing direct access to hardware, but of course insulation from hardware is one of the main purposes of an operating system. Yay MS. |
Do you have any idea why DirectX is called a Hardware Abstraction Layer.
Direct access to the hardware is provided by the drivers, not DirectX.
DirectX merely acts as a uniform graphical device, then figures out all of the "direct access" stuff itself. As far as gamedevs are concerned, every DirectX device of the same DX generation is the same.
You've clearly no idea what DirectX is, or how it works, so why don't you can it?
The purpose of the OS isn't to insulate from the hardware, it's to operate the system. Hence the name.
And DirectX does insulate from the hardware -- it provides a HAL for gamedevs and uses drivers to access the hardware directly.
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child of Thor
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quote:
Originally posted by lord of the mark
edit.......
In addition to the console market, there are plenty of people who own PC's and dont buy games, or buy few of them,.........edit
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well i think the numbers on this are rather scary, scary because it makes us look like a real minority. The numbers i've got are a bit old but something like less than 10% of pc's that are sold then have their owners go out and buy games(not including the bundled software). I guess alot of this can be attributed to pc's in the work place? I'm not sure, maybe its something more sinister like most people think playing games is naff?(they are missing out i think).
As for the nintendo situation it just sounds a little like a last gasp knee-jerk reaction to the worse than expected sales of the cube? As more complex games get released for the xbox(the HD is an advantage in this area), it will be interesting to see what Sony and Nintendo will do, and if this cry of 'simple is better' will be reflected in new console sales. For myself i would rather play games like 'Knights of the Republic' and 'Morrowind' than another streetfighter or spaceinvaiders-with-bells-on clone.
But then again maybe thats cause i'm a 'niche' gamer and like strategy games over action ones?
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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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quote:
Originally posted by Asher
Do you have any idea why DirectX is called a Hardware Abstraction Layer. |
What it is called and what it does are two different things. Besides, isn't hardware abstraction one of the things that an OS should do? Or, in other words, what happens to Windows machines without DirectX, e.g. 3.x, early versions of NT, etc.? Eh, do they really access hardware directly?
quote:
Originally posted by Asher
Direct access to the hardware is provided by the drivers, not DirectX. |
No, no, no. You got it wrong. You need to write your own code to directly access the hardware, bypassing the drivers.
quote:
Originally posted by Asher
DirectX merely acts as a uniform graphical device, then figures out all of the "direct access" stuff itself. As far as gamedevs are concerned, every DirectX device of the same DX generation is the same. |
Oh really? So why bother having DirectX, as I pointed out above?
quote:
Originally posted by Asher
You've clearly no idea what DirectX is, or how it works, so why don't you can it? |
I see you are still angry from being blown away in other threads (e.g. HTML/CSS).
quote:
Originally posted by Asher
The purpose of the OS isn't to insulate from the hardware, it's to operate the system. Hence the name. |
When will you take your first OS course, Glonkie?
quote:
Originally posted by Asher
And DirectX does insulate from the hardware -- it provides a HAL for gamedevs and uses drivers to access the hardware directly. |
Aren't you contradicting yourself?
Last edited by Urban Ranger on 18-08-2003 at 10:54
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Asher
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Calgary, Alberta
Nov 1999
time: 22:30
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Why don't you come back and play once you've actually developed something with DirectX, UR...
quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
What it is called and what it does are two different things. Besides, isn't hardware abstraction one of the things that an OS should do? Or, in other words, what happens to Windows machines without DirectX, e.g. 3.x, early versions of NT, etc.? Eh, do they really access hardware directly? |
No, they do not -- you had to go through the OS to do everything, and it was painfully slow for gaming.
DirectX provides an interface, indeed an abstracted interface, which does allow direct access to the hardware, through the drivers.
You cannot write directly to the hardware except what the drivers permit you to, and the code that tells the drivers what to do is DirectX. The programmer just tells DirectX what it wants done, and DirectX sends the appropriate hardware calls to the appropriate drivers.
quote:
No, no, no. You got it wrong. You need to write your own code to directly access the hardware, bypassing the drivers. |
This is totally incorrect, anyone who has spent 5 minutes with DirectX before could tell you that.
I'm not going to bother going into great detail, but I strongly suggest you go buy a book or at least look up tutorials online on the DirectX infrastructure and how it works.
Personally, I've worked through a 900+ page book called Special Effects Programming with Direct X (8.0) last summer, and the closest thing that comes close to accessing the hardware directly is using PS or VS code, and even in that case it's regulated by DirectX. And in 9.0, it's abstracted even further with HLSL (Higher Level Shading Language), which is generic across all cards.
quote:
Oh really? So why bother having DirectX, as I pointed out above? |
DirectX makes game development radically simpler on the PC. Instead of writing code for S3 cards, for ATI cards, for Nvidia cards, for Intel cards, etc -- you write for one card.
Here's how it works: Game -> DirectX -> Hardware. If you eliminated DirectX, you'd need to write code individually for each card, like Carmack has to do for modern OpenGL extensions or how all game devs had to do it in the DOS days.
Why do you think virtually every Windows game now is DirectX based, if it's as useless as you imply?
quote:
I see you are still angry from being blown away in other threads (e.g. HTML/CSS). |
No, UR, you were blown away in all of those threads, including this one. You're just too pigheaded and rooted in ignorance to know or care.
quote:
When will you take your first OS course, Glonkie? |
Last year -- and unlike you, mine was on modern OSes. Not to mention I've got a couple years of DirectX programming experience, and you've got, what, 0 minutes?
quote:
Aren't you contradicting yourself? |
Um. No...
Gamedevs use DirectX to access the hardware. It insulates from the hardware, providing an abstraction and access layer far faster than going through Windows itself.
quote:
Prove it, or retract such utter drivel. |
How have I not proved it? I consistently shoot down your bullshit, just like this thread.
You've no idea what you're talking about, and it's patently obvious, and you still sit there on your high horse talking down. Somebody has a complex...
So to finally shut you up, I'll give you some help:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/archive/d...rstand_6z3n.asp
quote:
Microsoft® Direct3D® provides device independence through the hardware abstraction layer (HAL). The HAL is a device-specific interface, provided by the device manufacturer, that Direct3D uses to work directly with the display hardware. Applications never interact with the HAL. Rather, with the infrastructure that the HAL provides, Direct3D exposes a consistent set of interfaces and methods that an application uses to display graphics. The device manufacturer implements the HAL in a combination of 16-bit and 32-bit code under Microsoft Windows®. Under Windows NT® and Windows 2000, the HAL is always implemented in 32-bit code. The HAL can be part of the display driver or a separate dynamic-link library (DLL) that communicates with the display driver through a private interface that driver's creator defines.
The Direct3D HAL is implemented by the chip manufacturer, board producer, or original equipment manufacturer (OEM). The HAL implements only device-dependent code and performs no emulation. If a function is not performed by the hardware, the HAL does not report it as a hardware capability. Additionally, the HAL does not validate parameters; Direct3D does this before the HAL is invoked.
In DirectX 8.0, the HAL can have three different vertex processing modes: software vertex processing, hardware vertex processing, and mixed vertex processing on the same device. The pure device mode is a variant of the HAL device. The pure device type supports hardware vertex processing only, and allows only a small subset of the device state to be queried by the application. Additionally, the pure device is available only on adapters that have a minimum level of capabilities. |
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:30
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quote:
Originally posted by DrSpike
Well I play a lot of games, and I don't think I've ever (Win95 onwards) found one that I couldn't get to work.  |
Okie doke - if i ever have a problem i cant fix, I'll come here, and ask for Dr. Spike to help me
One game was Age of Kings - couldnt get anything to happen - called the MS help people (Its THEIR game, as well as THEIR OS) and it turned out there was a conflict between the copy protection on the CD and the CD drive my PC came equiped with. NOTHING TO BE DONE, per MS. So I took it back to EB.
Well now Ive got an EB credit, and nothing in the store that grabs me. So I buy a used copy of Rising Sun, the Talonsoft game. Afterall havent gotten a Wargame in awhile, and im interested in the Pacific war - even if im really more in the mood for a strategic game, or a naval game, rather than an operational scale game with a land focus. And the thing wont go beyond the intro movie. Never figured out what happened. I suppose I could have made more of an effort to get help, but since it wasnt a game I was absolutely interested in, I gave up and returned it as well. Used the credit for SMAC, which ran fine.
All in all it means i take every game purchase as a spin of the roulette wheel, especially now that EB has revoked its old return policy. Given my old PC im only buying bargain bin games anyway now, but I'll be VERY cautious about plunking down $40 US or more on a game that may very well not run with no recourse other then selling it at a major discount.
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14-08-2003 14:51
) up to date, and reinstalling the OS every now and again keeps everything running fine.
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