HarryWeezer

Outstanding!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy birthday General. Hope it's a great one.

Don't forget: new members must clean the masturbatoriam at XI Corporate until replaced by newer members. Enjoy. Oh, and welcome aboard the Good Ship Idiot!!!

Have a GREAT one!!

Every graphical and technical advance the game industry has seen from Pong to Crysis has been a small step toward the end goal of a real-time, photorealistic 3D world that is truly indistinguishable from a real-world scene. Speaking at the DICE Summit Thursday, Epic Games founder and programmer Tim Sweeney examined the speed and direction of computing improvements and determined that we "might expect, over the course of our lifetime, we'd get to amounts of computing power that come very close to simulating reality." The necessary bounds for true photorealism are set by the physical limits of the human eye, Sweeney explained, which can only process the equivalent of a 30 megapixel image at about 70 frames per second. Given current trends, monitor display technology should be able to handle that level of detail for a small area in just a few more generations. Projecting that level of detail across a larger, 90 degree field of vision would take an 8000 x 6000 pixel display, which is still quite far off but "within sight," Sweeney said. This level of detail sets an upper limit on the amount of memory and raw processing power we'd need to depict a "good enough" photorealistic scene, Sweeney says. That limit is about 50 times greater than the polygon-processing capabilities of today's top-end hardware, meaning it's at least two generations away. A light matter But simply pushing polygons isn't enough to get true realism. The ability to trace the subtle interplay of light on various surfaces is also key to creating a realistic scene. Yet the vast majority of current-generation games use a "two-bounce" light processing algorithm of the type used in games going back to 1999's Unreal. We're just now seeing much more convincing "three bounce" light processing in demos like Samaritan, which Epic showed off at last year's GDC. And while Samaritan's 2.5 teraflops (that's trillions of floating-point operations per second, laymen) is a far cry from the 10 megaflops that were needed to power the original Doom, we're still a good deal short of the 5,000 teraflops Sweeney calculates we'd need to process a fully realistic 3D scene in real time. And even then, that would only handle the visual effects we currently understand how to model realistically—things like shadows, skin tones, smoke, and water. Plenty of the intangible elements of a scene, like realistic human movements, speech, and even personality, are way beyond our ability to model realistically just yet. "We don't have the algorithms, so even if we had a perfect computer today... we'd be relying not on more computing power, but on innovation in the state of the art algorithms," Sweeney said. Revolutionary interfaces Outside of raw computing and algorithmic power, the future may also hold further revelations in the way we interact with virtual environments. Sweeney pointed to upcoming Sony sunglasses with transparent lenses that allow for hands-free image projection in a way that hasn't seemed cool since the '80s. He also predicted that increasing scarcity in real goods may drive up the value of increasingly realistic virtual goods, to the point where the market rivals the $25 trillion worldwide trade in real estate. Whatever form the interface takes, though, the change caused by truly realistic real-time modeling is going to be truly revolutionary, Sweeney said. "When a whole generation of kids is raised with those devices pervasively around them, it's going to change the world," he said. "I see a bright future for computing and its implications on games. I see the ability as developers to exploit another 1,000-fold increase in power on platforms… I think our industry's brightest days are yet to come."

EA's Battlelog has word we should expect a patch for Battlefield 3 today: We are releasing a minor PC update that aims to improve general performance and stability and solve some reproducible crash issues. The update also includes support for the upcoming Intel “Ivy Bridge” product line and performance improvements on AMD Radeon 7xxx series graphics cards . List of issues fixed: Support for Intel’s new Ivy Bridge product line (as yet unreleased) Fixes for two reproducible client crashes: Operation Firestorm- Conquest Large – Fixed a client crash when users spawn in certain vehicles. Canals - Rush – Fixed a client crash at the 2nd set of mcoms if the player drives a vehicle into the vicinity of the exploding rocket battery. AMD Radeon 7xxx series performance improvements This minor fix is releasing on the 14th February, 8AM UT. This download will be via Origin. We would also like to inform the community that we have several ongoing developments with regards to balance and gameplay, performance, stability and the overall feature set that will be announced in the coming weeks

Have you run Task Manager while this is occuring to see what else might be running and competing for CPU/memory? Oh, and by all means dump that Norton shit and use Microsoft Security Essentials.

This is disgusting. I am disgusted. I protest. I demand action. I will not stand for this. I..... Oh, never mind; Happy V Day regardless of your sexual orientation.

Welcome. As to Hxtr the drug dealer, I got pictures, which I might part with if the price is right.

Have a wonderful birthday Kleine. You ROCK!!!!!!!

Pay special attention to side effects!!!

Heffalump We will never know, we cannot see the edge of the the universe and probably never will, as the size of the universe is increasing faster than the speed of light. also, if you put 3 grains of sand inside St. Paul's Cathedral, it would be more crowed with sand than the Universe is with stars. Over the last 2 years BBC has made 2 programs, Secrets of the Solar System, and Secrets of the Universe with Prof. Brian Cox, once in D:REAM (things can only get better) as a keyboard player, now working at Cern on the Large Hadron Collider. Totally amazing, interesting and captivating. I thoroughly recommend to those outside of the UK also if you can find it. Also we have had over here Stargazing live on the BBc, very entertianing. All this talk makes me want to explore tbh, so much so, in 1-2 months I will get my own telescope to see some of those amazing things out there. something like a Skywatcher 200pds Newton Reflector, or if I push the boat out a little, a CPC 800 GPs xlt Celestron. I hope to get the kids interested too! Matter cannot exceed the speed of light. See: http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_sp_ex.html It appears that the Universe is expanding at 80 km/sec/Mpc (statistical error = 17 km/sec/Mpc), as calculated by the Hubble Space Telescope's Key Project team (Mpc is megaparsec = 3.26 million light years). What this means is that objects will, on the average, be moving away from us at 80 km/sec for every megaparsec it is away from us. So another galaxy that is 1 Mpc away will be moving away from us at about 80 km/sec, and one that is 10 Mpc away will be moving at about 800 km/sec.

I would have sold it. Why destroy something of value?

Yo Walmart; seems like you've been gone forever. Nice to see you back!!!

Is there a titty bar?

Likewise Hxtr. I took away much more that I gave. Personally, I think every American should give service to their country, either in the military or in some other way. They may then better understand what it takes to keep it.

Have a good one!!!

Send me $1,000, and I will send you a notarized statement to the effect that I will sign over to you all of my real property in whatever form it is, if it is proven beyond any scientific doubt whatsoever that there exist ghosts, alien spacecraft or creatures, Susquatch; gods of any stripe, Loch Ness monster, vampires, werewolves, the devil, dragons, psychics, mind readers, demons, etc., etc., and etc., ad nauseum.

hxtr i wish i had a penis... Want mine? I don't use it anymore.

I can only hope to have such courage and dedication. You set an example for all of us to live by. Thank you!!

Thank you for this wonderful poem about me. How'd you know?

Sassy just ask him to note who's making the accusations and pass that to an admin. They'll take it from there. (Please don't kick me in the balls. I thank you!)

Done. (thanks Hxtr)