| 05:57:45 | captain_proton | ibot, help |
| 07:11:49 | captain_proton | hey |
| 07:11:58 | vogon_jeltz | ho |
| 07:13:00 | captain_proton | i like this...all the loki demos in about 10 minutes... |
| 07:13:18 | vogon_jeltz | heh |
| 07:15:41 | captain_proton | would you believe there are only 14 loki demos? |
| 07:15:58 | vogon_jeltz | no... /me slaps his face in disbelief |
| 07:16:04 | vogon_jeltz | ;) |
| 07:17:05 | captain_proton | gee...on 56k it'd be 2006 by the time i'd have gotten them all |
| 07:17:13 | vogon_jeltz | rofl |
| 07:17:27 | vogon_jeltz | wishes proton could get UT so he could host a server |
| 07:17:48 | captain_proton | how about i just write a really cool game and i host a server for that? |
| 07:18:20 | vogon_jeltz | OK |
| 07:21:57 | captain_proton | got that optimized triagle culling routine done? |
| 07:22:11 | vogon_jeltz | no |
| 07:22:21 | vogon_jeltz | I still haven't figured out how to hack the class interfaces... |
| 07:22:29 | captain_proton | heh... |
| 07:22:52 | vogon_jeltz | because to cull it, the renderer has to have some knowledge of both a) the objects in the scene, and b) the position of the camera |
| 07:23:07 | captain_proton | well, you could just do backface culling... |
| 07:23:15 | vogon_jeltz | that's what I'm trying to do |
| 07:23:17 | vogon_jeltz | :) |
| 07:23:18 | captain_proton | which would need only the camera |
| 07:23:48 | vogon_jeltz | yes, but I'm trying to remove them at the SceneDatabase level |
| 07:24:08 | vogon_jeltz | because it's a *lot* easier that way |
| 07:24:14 | captain_proton | actually all you need is the vector from the camera position to the origin of the polygon... |
| 07:24:32 | vogon_jeltz | yes, but don't you have to test it against all other polygons in the scene? |
| 07:24:59 | vogon_jeltz | well, at least a small subset of them? |
| 07:25:12 | captain_proton | thats only if you're doing full hidden surface removal |
| 07:25:19 | vogon_jeltz | hrm |
| 07:25:30 | captain_proton | for backface culling, you just test the direction that the polygon is facing |
| 07:25:53 | vogon_jeltz | doesn't know much about 3D graphics stuff, so... smile and nod... smile and nod |
| 07:26:04 | captain_proton | if the angle is anywhere between 90 and 270, you don't draw the polygon |
| 07:26:28 | vogon_jeltz | hmm... that's a nice little algorithm :) |
| 07:26:39 | vogon_jeltz | common-sense, but... |
| 07:27:00 | captain_proton | next time i go home i'll write down the equation for ya |
| 07:27:03 | vogon_jeltz | k |
| 07:27:16 | captain_proton | (my graphics books are at home) |
| 07:27:23 | vogon_jeltz | see, I was trying to do pretty much the same thing |
| 07:27:41 | vogon_jeltz | the only scene nodes added to the SceneDatabase would be the 2 facing the camera |
| 07:27:47 | vogon_jeltz | and the top and bottom, of course |
| 07:28:15 | captain_proton | this equation works for all faces, including top & bottom |
| 07:28:22 | vogon_jeltz | which would net up to approximately a 50% increase in some levels... |
| 07:28:46 | captain_proton | puts on some depressing shostakovich music |
| 07:28:51 | vogon_jeltz | but the "accepted" way would yield a maximum framerate improvement of 100%... |
| 07:29:11 | captain_proton | minimum framerate improvement of 100% |
| 07:29:17 | vogon_jeltz | oh, OK :) |
| 07:29:20 | captain_proton | maximum improvement of 500% |
| 07:29:26 | vogon_jeltz | wow, nice |
| 07:29:37 | vogon_jeltz | now everyone can have BZFlag at 500 fps... |
| 07:29:45 | captain_proton | think about it - minimum you're removing 3 faces from the pipeline |
| 07:29:49 | captain_proton | maximum, you're removing 5 |
| 07:29:54 | vogon_jeltz | ahh, good point :) |
| 07:30:44 | captain_proton | well...everyone can have bzflag at 200 fps |
| 07:30:50 | vogon_jeltz | heh |
| 07:30:50 | captain_proton | *I* can have bz at 500 |
| 07:31:13 | captain_proton | actually probably more like 650... |
| 07:31:20 | captain_proton | too bad it doesn't matter past 80 :) |
| 07:31:24 | vogon_jeltz | no, because the GeForce3 already does some of that hidden surface removal in hardware... you would be doing it in slower, less-optimized hardware |
| 07:31:55 | vogon_jeltz | nVidia's drivers rock, their cards rock, but their support of the OS movement is sickening :) |
| 07:32:08 | vogon_jeltz | non-support, rather |
| 07:32:19 | captain_proton | why is that? because they don't write drivers for your card? |
| 07:32:41 | vogon_jeltz | no, because they close up the driver source so that it can't be improved by the Linux community |
| 07:32:49 | captain_proton | i have the driver source right here... |
| 07:33:03 | vogon_jeltz | hrm... how? |
| 07:33:07 | vogon_jeltz | oh, yeah :) |
| 07:33:14 | vogon_jeltz | I forgot, you have to compile it from source |
| 07:33:23 | vogon_jeltz | but the source is not freely modifiable |
| 07:33:33 | captain_proton | true... |
| 07:33:56 | captain_proton | but they *support* the driver, so they can't have modified versions floating around the net |
| 07:34:27 | vogon_jeltz | yes, good point, but the problem is, you have to wait for *them* to fix any problems that come up |
| 07:34:54 | captain_proton | when a problem comes up they have a release within a few days - believe me, they're on top of it |
| 07:35:08 | vogon_jeltz | OK |
| 07:35:23 | vogon_jeltz | hasn't used an nVidia card since his TNT2 Riva Vanta and 0.9-769 |
| 07:35:55 | captain_proton | and they actually write their own linux drivers instead of letting the OS community hack something together based on reverse engineering |
| 07:36:03 | captain_proton | unlike *cough cough hack hack* ATI |
| 07:36:08 | vogon_jeltz | rofl |
| 07:36:10 | vogon_jeltz | :) |
| 07:36:16 | vogon_jeltz | hates ATI... bleh |
| 07:37:51 | captain_proton | awww....they don't include mvision.h with the linux driver :( |
| 07:38:02 | vogon_jeltz | :/ |
| 07:38:29 | captain_proton | my calculus book was $120 :P |
| 07:38:37 | vogon_jeltz | heh |
| 07:38:59 | captain_proton | $400 in books for this semester... |
| 07:39:46 | captain_proton | and only 9 more semesters before i get the degrees... |
| 07:40:01 | captain_proton | then another 6 semesters or so for the other 2 |
| 07:40:14 | vogon_jeltz | so, $6,400 in books? |
| 07:40:16 | vogon_jeltz | :) |
| 07:40:51 | captain_proton | something like thqt |
| 07:40:55 | captain_proton | that rather |
| 07:56:47 | captain_proton | goes to bed |