farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) (12/19/90)
This is the last time I'm going to respond to Michel Buffa here. I've gotten very tired of beating a horse which he's trying so hard to kill. Plus, the more I've heard of his arguments, the less I feel like answering them, as it becomes clearer and clearer that he just does NOT know what he's talking about, and has little interest in learning. Thanks for the kind e-mail, the rest of you guys, and Merry Christmas - I hope you all find nice, multitasking-friendly, HD-installable, and 68030 compatible games under the tree! buffa@kish.inria.fr (Michel Buffa) writes: >most of the arcade games I love have 60Hz animation. >It's often written in the advertising pages, so it exists ! I guess in France the gullibility quotient is considerably higher than it is here. Either that, or smiley's don't exist there :-) >Why 60 Hz ? >because the main loop is executed at each VBL interrupt, while the video beam >comes from the bottom of the screen to the top in order to draw a new screen. >The main adventage is that the joystick will be read each 1/60 seconds, the >screen will be redrawn at a given and regular period -> instantaneous >reactions all the time, not depending on the number of objects on screen, on >the other tasks running in the background. This is basic games programming, nothing special. And you conveniently ignore some basic fallacies in your statement. First, the "not depending on the number" is flatly wrong. This is the case ONLY until you have piled too many tasks into the VBL interrupt code, at which point your response will go through the floor. You do acknowledge this later, but do not say anything about the consequence: most of the animation is "60Hz" in spirit only. Most animated objects don't move EVERY 60th of a second. In fact, it would be stupid to do so, as 30 frames per second produce the illusion of continuous motion very well - you don't need the overhead of 60-per-second updates, and few programmers with any sense will use that overhead. The only time you do need that kind of resolution is when you're trying to do fine tracking of fast-moving things like shots, and those, if you notice, are almost always very limited. And, more to the point, none of this is any reason not to be multitasking- friendly. I notice that you have nothing to say at all about why this, or any other consideration, demands the usurpation of the Amiga's normal operations. The hell with it - I'm very, very tired of trying to justify what I see as simple good programming practices to someone who evidently believes that the Data Becker books should reside right next to Knuth on any programmer's shelves. As for myself, I will continue to look for more Amiga programming opportunities, and I guarantee that, unless the person who's hiring me says "Do it my way or walk" AND I'm broke, any games I do will be as Amiga-friendly as I can make 'em - and I can make 'em good. -- Mike Farren farren@well.sf.ca.us
lrg7030@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Loren Rittle) (12/20/90)
Mike Farren writes recently: >The hell with it - I'm very, very tired of trying to justify what I see >as simple good programming practices to someone who evidently believes >that the Data Becker books should reside right next to Knuth on any >programmer's shelves. Mike, Haha, you must be joking! Do you really think this guy even knows who Knuth is? :-) Yow, I think I'll go use AmigaTeX for a while. :-) Have a great Holiday Season all. Peace to even the people who `like' games that are hostile to the friendly Amiga system software. :-) Loren J. Rittle -- ``In short, this is the absolute coolest computer device ever invented!'' -Tom Denbo speaking about The VideoToaster by NewTek ``Think about NewTek's VideoToaster! Now think about the Amiga!'' Loren J. Rittle lrg7030@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu