Spring RTS Engine

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/sh ... spx?i=3044

They used Supreme Commander as sample application.

vista is designed to use more overhead in order to force people to upgrade their hardware when they wouldn't otherwise

hunterw wrote:vista is designed to use more overhead in order to force people to upgrade their hardware when they wouldn't otherwise

The sad things is that ms actually is in a position to do that.

Plus I really can't believe that the default user space limit is still at 2gb, where it has been ever since win2k.
On xp you could up that by a boot-time switch to the absolute (32 bit) maximum of 4gb, resulting in a somewhat unstable system (in my case anyway).

Haha, no one is going to buy vista. Gaming is shifting primarily to console development, and for the first time in 15 some odd years any developer for the PC that intends to make a serious impressive game needs to seriously look at lunix support. We're gonna have a rough one for the 5 years until things stabilize, but hopefully Microsoft doesn't come out on top this time!

SwiftSpear wrote:and for the first time in 15 some odd years any developer for the PC that intends to make a serious impressive game needs to seriously look at lunix support.

No they really don't. Most indie games already support Linux or can easily be run in Wine and the support for advanced graphics stuff on Linux is pretty much non-existent. Platforms other than Windows for computers have a very small section of the market anyway.

tombom wrote:

SwiftSpear wrote:and for the first time in 15 some odd years any developer for the PC that intends to make a serious impressive game needs to seriously look at lunix support.

No they really don't. Most indie games already support Linux or can easily be run in Wine and the support for advanced graphics stuff on Linux is pretty much non-existent. Platforms other than Windows for computers have a very small section of the market anyway.

Yeah, when both Mac and Linux combined only make up under 7% of the total Desktop OS population, non windows OSs take a back seat for developers.

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

You also need to remember that game developers (at least their producers) aren't trying to make a good game, they are trying to make money.

*que AF coming and and saying WTF VISTA ROCKS UR ALL NOOBZ *

Actually, no this article is flawed because

A) It uses a few things against Vista which are not Vista issues they're generic hardware issues that apply to all 32bit Operating systems, XP, 2000, 98, even linux.
B) They obviously haven't installed all the hot fixes and packs that fix the memory issues.

A)

Memory addressing works such that at the start of the address space you have your BIOS 512k then you have your ram, and at the end of address space, you have your HD caches and you Video ram.

This is why under a 32bit system a PC with 4GB of ram installed will only show 2-3Gb of ram in device manager. This is because the address space of that upper gigabyte of ram is being used for video ram. So the more Video ram you have the less addressable space left over.

As a result a program cannot surpass the 2GB mark in virtual memory or windows will run out of virtual address space for the program, causing out of memory errors.

Infact this issue isnt a supcom +Vista issue, Galactic civilizations developers recently made a blogpost explaining the issue and how ti puzzled them that verified working code crashed udner random circumstances on multiple versions of windows.

On top of that a possible cause for it happening more regularly under generic vista was found and fixed by microsoft. A hot fix was released fixing a bug where Vista allocated memory addresses twice rather than once causing virtual address space to run out faster.

So what about the rest of this memory stuff? Well we've just halved memory address space usage in Vista with a hot fix, we can shave another 250MB+ off the vista kernel/services using the compatibility and reliability update packs, and then some more with the second pack that came with it. Then there's updated Vista gfx drivers too.

So in the end the memory hike isnt that large.

I have Vista 64bit running with aero and the fancy sidebar gadgets and Vistas memory footprint is 240.352MB. I have 47% ram usage with satiriks lobby @ 58MB fire fox @ 80MB and netbeans at 180MB as the top 3 ram users, out fo 2048MB of ddr2.

Of that 240.352MB 50MB was taken up by wdm.exe aka the desktop window manager that ran the taskbar etc. Explorer.exe took up around 60MB.

So I disabled aero and went back to windows classic theme win 98 style, disabled all the fancy GUI sfx, and managed to reduce wdm.exe from 50MB to 6MB and Explorer from 60MB to 26MB.

koshi wrote:On xp you could up that by a boot-time switch to the absolute (32 bit) maximum of 4gb, resulting in a somewhat unstable system (in my case anyway).

This is not a true fix, this is a kludge that was introduced under XP to help avert the comign 32bit memory barrier. Its called 36bit PAE extensions. It lets XP use 36bit memory addresses instead of 32bit addresses, however only programs specifically compiled to use it can actually address the full 36bit memory space. There are tools available that can add the PAE support to the executables address headers so they're flagged as LARGE ADDRESS AWARE. This is how the sup com fix 3GB fix works.

Because of the way 32bit architecture works however PAE is not a suitable solution. Most programs cannot use PAE, and PAE itself only lets you address up to 3GB, an extra GB before your system starts destabilizing.

The onyl solution therefore is 64bit Operating systems. XP 64bit is a shambles, and 64bit vista appears to be better than 32bit vista were graphics drivers are concerned (switching from 32bit to 64bit gave me an instant speed+stability boost from my nvidia drivers).

So of course Vista wont run well on older machines. Sure it'll use more ram than XP. That's not why I use Vista, because I know fi I use Vista on the latest hardware it'll run far better than it will on your machines, not because of the hardware, but because that's what vista was optimized for.

And no, I do not expect you to go out buy vista. In fact I would not recommend it. Do not buy vista. I doubt most of you bought XP, and instead pirated it or got it bundled with a new PC like 80% of all th other windows installs.

As I keep saying. If you have a fairly modern machine (dual core) and can get Vista for free or for pennies then get it. Don't bother with vista basic. Get 64bit were possible.

Otherwise use ubuntu.

The article writers also failed to find this:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105

Or this:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/windows_vi ... fixes.html

Which was plastered all over the nvidia driver download page....

LOrDo wrote:*que AF coming and and saying WTF VISTA ROCKS UR ALL NOOBZ *

This is what happens when you site a source from mid July people. Thats absolutely ANCIENT in computer terms. Of course, the microsoft fix is from mere days ago.

Doesn't change the fact that Vista phails harder than "50 Cent: Bulletproof".

That particular hotfix was available months ago on request through windows customer support

lol this one time, AF tried to turn on his computer by saying "Computer, ON."

[Huge list of links to educated people saying Vista is a waste of time and money, moved down a few posts with updates and specific problem listings]

Goody, Vista's successor is due in 3 years, too bad about the idiots that bought Vista already: http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/20/vist ... e-years?=7

And once upon a time caydr turned down a billion dollars because there was a clause that said if he had 5 legs and antennae he'd loose all his worldly possessions.

The content protection path is a moot point because it assumes the user wants to play DVDs using media player, and that DVDs are playing in media player from the moment you login to your account. Its very simple to fix, don't use media player, use winamp or VLC, itunes even.

pah editing your posts after you've posted them.

Most of those articles are speculative or are applying generic truths to Vista such as "Hey theyve just released an API lets point out that nobodies made any programs yet (but lets leave out the common sense explanation that its just been released so obviously nobody has anything)"

Or what about "lets complain about aero(oh noes! lets hope they don't realize it can be turned off!)"

Or the few links you sent that fault vista because its not completely secure (somethign thats impossible) yet still say its better than XP.

Caydr, if your going to post links, at least use hard reliable links that arent unreliable opinion and speculation. And most of all make sure they're actually doing what you want them to do! There's no point linking to an article saying Vista > XP if your on an anti vista crusade.

And please, no "people aren't buying Vista so it must be rubbish" tosh. Nobody buys Windows releases, they get them bundled with new PCs or for free via dubious or official means.

Everyone's wrong but you.

pah editing your posts after you've posted them.

Editing is considered the preferable alternative to double-posting. Like you just did.

Your post didn't declare me as wrong, it didn't even address what I said. You just posted a laod of links to random articles full of speculation and sensationalized news stories with little meaningful resources or evidence.

What I did say however is correct because its a pressing issue in 32 bit game development at the moment, and my point was it was unfair applying it to Vista when it affected all x86 32bit operating systems regardless of manufacturer.

However your just trolling now

So my l33t hacking skills (aka, the edit post button) doesn't confuse you again, I'll just post this below your new post:

HDCP sucks ass:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/p ... _cost.html

Microsoft bribes bloggers to say nice things about Vista:
http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40553

Gamers don't use Vista:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20 ... vista.html

Vista's security no better than XP's:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20 ... eport.html

Or possibly worse:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/s ... 261,00.htm

Fewer people are buying Vista compared with XP, at each of their respective launch periods:
http://gamedrift.com/articles.php?a=275

General stuff (I especially agree with the point on networking):
http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2007/0 ... vista.html

Vista offers very little of benefit to gamers, ie, us, so it blows:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=22161

More HDCP bs:
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol ... 290451.ece

Manufacturers forced to offer XP on new computers again:
http://uk.theinquirer.net/?article=39087

Vista calls home:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Forget-a ... 8752.shtml

Generally made of fail:
http://aaxnet.com/editor/edit043.html

Planned obsolescence just in time for programs to start to work with it:
http://aaxnet.com/editor/edit043.html

The much bitched-about (by you) lack of good Vista drivers is likely a result of the built-in non-negotiable DRM:
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/juha/1908

Also, it costs $300 and does nothing. What is wrong in your head that makes you think this thing is even worth defending? The entire internet except for the Microsoft Word fanclub agrees that Vista is a waste of money and a horrendous disappointment. This should've taken 1-2 years, not 5. More to the point, there is no reason it should have been made. It does nothing. Its most significant new feature is an inferface that has since been back-ported to XP.

Vista is a disaster. You're the only person here who says otherwise. What personal stake do you have that leads you to want to deny reality?