>> [Ever tried to do software rendering on a 286? Hint: this belongs to the 
>> class of operations that is "not fast".]
> 
>   I don't believe Doom even works in a 286. (Maybe a much later third-party
> port, perhaps, but not the original one.)

OK, well, we *are* talking about events that happened well over 10 years 
ago. My memory isn't so hot. What I do remember is this:

1. At the time, Doom was reputed to require insanely expensive high-end 
hardware to run usably.

2. My school had old, crappy hardware.

3. A friend of mine cunningly hid a copy of Doom on several PCs. 
(Installed it in a folder named "...", so nobody would spot it.)

4. It was slow as hell!

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Warp wrote:

>   (Of course the PC world lagging behind in technology is nothing new.
> The DEC Alpha processor was already 64-bit in 1992. The first 64-bit
> PC processor was the Itanium, in 2001, which didn't get widespread
> popularity. The first widespread 64-bit PC processor was the AMD Opteron,
> introduced in 2003.)

My mate Benny tells me that [I forget exactly who] had a 10 GHz CPU well 
over 10 years ago, but modern PCs can't do this due to "the x86 overhead".

But then, my mate Benny tells me a lot of computer-related "facts" which 
are quite clearly wildly incorrect, so...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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"Nicolas Alvarez" <nic### [at] gmailisthebestcom> wrote in message
news:47d2ddaa$1@news.povray.org...

> I don't know anyone (personally, and in the same country as me) who is
> geeky enough to know about D&D anyway. So even if it sounded interesting
> to me (which it doesn't), who would I play with?

What country do you live in?
http://www.treasuretables.org/ways-to-find-rpg-players

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"Orchid XP v7" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47d2f3cb$1@news.povray.org...
> >
> > The increase in picture quality can be quite noticeable, but only if you
> > have equipment that can display it properly.
>
> Well, two things:
>
> 1. It has 2x the spatial resolution in both directions. That doesn't
> sound particularly earth-shattering, even on paper.
>
> 2. I saw two displays side-by-side in a shop. The one marked HD was
> certainly clearer. But it didn't make me go "wow, that's AMAZING!"
> Actually it just made me go "oh, OK, so it's 10% more crisp. And you
> want HOW MANY thousand pounds for this one??"

Thousands of pounds? Maybe 5 years ago. I just bought a 40" HD TV for under
1000 pounds, and it's mid-high on the 40" range.
I've played X-box games on both my old TV and the new LCD. The difference is
exceptional. I couldn't even read half the text on the old TV. On the new,
it's crystal clear.

Normal DVDs don't show so much difference, but there's still a very
noticable difference in display quality. I watched the sceen with Gandalf
and the Balrog of Moria on the new TV and it was sooo clear.

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"Fredrik Eriksson" <fe79}--at--{yahoo}--dot--{com> wrote in message
news:op.### [at] e6600bredbandsbolagetse...
> On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 20:24:49 +0100, Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:

> >
> > Interesting. I was sure they said one of them was being backed by HP...
>
> I think HP supported HD-DVD.

They did. My HP laptop has a HD-DVD drive. Woohoo.

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Gail Shaw wrote:
> I've never heard of Colossal cave. 

AKA "Adventure", aka the first ever computer adventure-style game. (Was 
it the first game at all?)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> 1. At the time, Doom was reputed to require insanely expensive high-end 
> hardware to run usably.

  That would be a 486, yes. It worked in a 386, but 486 was recommended.

> 4. It was slow as hell!

  With current computers you could run Doom at 1600x1200 in the original
software rendering mode without problems (assuming it would support those
resolutions, which it doesn't, at least not without heavy modifications
of the source code, AFAIK).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Nicolas Alvarez <nic### [at] gmailisthebestcom> wrote:
>>> Yes. A few weeks ago, Toshiba announced they lost and are no longer 
>>> manufacturing HD DVD players.
> 
>> So yeah. Blu-ray didn't win. HD-DVD gave up :)
> 
>   Fortunately the Blu-Ray format is the (slightly) better of the two
> anyways.

Actually, I saw a blue-ray display on a something-like60" display in the 
store a couple weeks ago. It was the first big-screen display that 
didn't look (to me) worse than a smaller screen. There was grainyness in 
the picture, but I was only standing a couple feet away and looking for 
it. Much better than the blocky over-compression stuff I always see on 
the big screens.

Maybe blue-ray just has better marketing and manages to get DVDs out to 
the stores selling the players, but the compression artifacts were 
definitely better, in my opinion.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Gail Shaw escribió:
> "Nicolas Alvarez" <nic### [at] gmailisthebestcom> wrote in message
> news:47d2ddaa$1@news.povray.org...
> 
>> I don't know anyone (personally, and in the same country as me) who is
>> geeky enough to know about D&D anyway. So even if it sounded interesting
>> to me (which it doesn't), who would I play with?
> 
> What country do you live in?
> http://www.treasuretables.org/ways-to-find-rpg-players

...if I *was* interested, which I'm not...

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Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> 
> [Having said that, I haven't seen *either* technology on any "shelves". 
> Perhaps this is related to the fact that I don't ever go shopping? I 
> don't know, when *I* go shopping, it always ends up being really 
> expensive...]

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20050319

> And while we're on the subject... I gather that all this "HD" stuff is 
> only slightly better quality than what's already there. It's not like 
> anybody is going to notice a huge increase in picture quality. And that 
> makes it hard for me to get excited about it...
> 

I'd assume otherwise. Of course, the people who can tell the difference 
on 20" screen from 2 meters are really rare.

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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