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digitalmars.D - Looks like xbox one and ps4 both amd64

reply "John Colvin" <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com> writes:
This has been known for a while, but I hadn't seen it mentioned 
here explicitly.

Both consoles are using amd jaguar cpus, which is good news for 
us as druntime/phobos should in theory JustWork!
Jun 11 2013
next sibling parent reply "nazriel" <spam dzfl.pl> writes:
On Tuesday, 11 June 2013 at 08:20:33 UTC, John Colvin wrote:

 This has been known for a while, but I hadn't seen it mentioned 
 here explicitly.

 Both consoles are using amd jaguar cpus, which is good news for 
 us as druntime/phobos should in theory JustWork!


Yeah, awesome news.
Given that DMD itself probably will never support anything except 
x86(-64) so there is not much pressure to support other 
architectures in druntime.

It is really great opportunity. Some new Android smartphones also 
are shipping with x86.

But there seem to be some quirks with those CPUs:
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ps4-and-xbox-one-s-amd-jaguar-cpu-examined/0116297
Jun 11 2013
next sibling parent reply Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:39:00 +0200
"nazriel" <spam dzfl.pl> wrote:


 On Tuesday, 11 June 2013 at 08:20:33 UTC, John Colvin wrote:

 This has been known for a while, but I hadn't seen it mentioned 
 here explicitly.

 Both consoles are using amd jaguar cpus, which is good news for 
 us as druntime/phobos should in theory JustWork!


 
 Yeah, awesome news.
 Given that DMD itself probably will never support anything except 
 x86(-64) so there is not much pressure to support other 
 architectures in druntime.
 
 It is really great opportunity. Some new Android smartphones also 
 are shipping with x86.
 
 But there seem to be some quirks with those CPUs:
 http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ps4-and-xbox-one-s-amd-jaguar-cpu-examined/0116297


Wow, given the abilities of the PS3 and 360, that article reads like
the comments of a spoiled brat.

I think it sounds encouraging: It means the next gen might not end up
pulling a 3DO on price like their predecessors did. It damn near killed
the PS3, which took Sony some major work to finally turn around.

In any case, it is nice that they're using x86. Seems like a smart
choice. I'll admit, when I first heard about it I was surprised at
least one of them didn't go ARM, but x86 does seem to make more
sense for a major games console at this particular point.
Jun 11 2013
next sibling parent Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On Tue, 11 Jun 2013 06:52:09 -0400
Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> wrote:

 
 I think it sounds encouraging: It means the next gen might not end up
 pulling a 3DO on price like their predecessors did. 


Ack, just saw the prices. I take back the above ;)
Jun 11 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> writes:
On 11 June 2013 20:52, Nick Sabalausky
<SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com>wrote:


 On Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:39:00 +0200
 "nazriel" <spam dzfl.pl> wrote:


 On Tuesday, 11 June 2013 at 08:20:33 UTC, John Colvin wrote:

 This has been known for a while, but I hadn't seen it mentioned
 here explicitly.

 Both consoles are using amd jaguar cpus, which is good news for
 us as druntime/phobos should in theory JustWork!


 Yeah, awesome news.
 Given that DMD itself probably will never support anything except
 x86(-64) so there is not much pressure to support other
 architectures in druntime.

 It is really great opportunity. Some new Android smartphones also
 are shipping with x86.

 But there seem to be some quirks with those CPUs:


 http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ps4-and-xbox-one-s-amd-jaguar-cpu-examined/0116297

 Wow, given the abilities of the PS3 and 360, that article reads like
 the comments of a spoiled brat.


Abilities? I think they're thoroughly uninteresting and totally
underwhelming hardware.
They're pretty weak. I wish they'd stuck with (multiple) ridiculously high
clocked PPC's personally.

I think it sounds encouraging: It means the next gen might not end up

 pulling a 3DO on price like their predecessors did. It damn near killed
 the PS3, which took Sony some major work to finally turn around.


Indeed, they're obviously designed to be cheap this time... or they'd be
better, and more interesting ;)

In any case, it is nice that they're using x86. Seems like a smart

 choice. I'll admit, when I first heard about it I was surprised at
 least one of them didn't go ARM, but x86 does seem to make more
 sense for a major games console at this particular point.


Personally, I think it's disappointing. x86's key advantage is being able
to run crappy desktop code fast.
Games are not usually 'crappy desktop code', they're carefully tuned,
purpose-specific code.
x86 uses MASSIVE amounts of its CPU realestate to tolerate crappy code. I'd
rather use that CPU realestate on more raw power, and put the
responsibility on the engines engineering merits to make the most of it.

This move sets a low upper limit, and the bar will start high. I don't
anticipate you'll see much tier-ing between 1st gen -> 3rd/4th gen games
this time round.

ARM might be better/more interesting than x86, but I actually still think
PPC is a good architecture for the purpose. VMX/SPU is still the best SIMD
unit.
Jun 11 2013
next sibling parent "Ron" <rd.hunt gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 12 June 2013 at 06:40:20 UTC, Manu wrote:

 On 11 June 2013 20:52, Nick Sabalausky
 <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com>wrote:


 On Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:39:00 +0200
 "nazriel" <spam dzfl.pl> wrote:


 On Tuesday, 11 June 2013 at 08:20:33 UTC, John Colvin wrote:

 This has been known for a while, but I hadn't seen it 
 mentioned
 here explicitly.

 Both consoles are using amd jaguar cpus, which is good 
 news for
 us as druntime/phobos should in theory JustWork!


 Yeah, awesome news.
 Given that DMD itself probably will never support anything 
 except
 x86(-64) so there is not much pressure to support other
 architectures in druntime.

 It is really great opportunity. Some new Android smartphones 
 also
 are shipping with x86.

 But there seem to be some quirks with those CPUs:


 http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ps4-and-xbox-one-s-amd-jaguar-cpu-examined/0116297

 Wow, given the abilities of the PS3 and 360, that article 
 reads like
 the comments of a spoiled brat.


 Abilities? I think they're thoroughly uninteresting and totally
 underwhelming hardware.
 They're pretty weak. I wish they'd stuck with (multiple) 
 ridiculously high
 clocked PPC's personally.

 I think it sounds encouraging: It means the next gen might not 
 end up

 pulling a 3DO on price like their predecessors did. It damn 
 near killed
 the PS3, which took Sony some major work to finally turn 
 around.


 Indeed, they're obviously designed to be cheap this time... or 
 they'd be
 better, and more interesting ;)

 In any case, it is nice that they're using x86. Seems like a 
 smart

 choice. I'll admit, when I first heard about it I was 
 surprised at
 least one of them didn't go ARM, but x86 does seem to make more
 sense for a major games console at this particular point.


 Personally, I think it's disappointing. x86's key advantage is 
 being able
 to run crappy desktop code fast.
 Games are not usually 'crappy desktop code', they're carefully 
 tuned,
 purpose-specific code.
 x86 uses MASSIVE amounts of its CPU realestate to tolerate 
 crappy code. I'd
 rather use that CPU realestate on more raw power, and put the
 responsibility on the engines engineering merits to make the 
 most of it.

 This move sets a low upper limit, and the bar will start high. 
 I don't
 anticipate you'll see much tier-ing between 1st gen -> 3rd/4th 
 gen games
 this time round.

 ARM might be better/more interesting than x86, but I actually 
 still think
 PPC is a good architecture for the purpose. VMX/SPU is still 
 the best SIMD
 unit.


The Jaguar cores in the xbox/ps4 don't do much hand holding, they 
are more embedded chips then desktop targeted.

Either way the interesting thing about the new consoles is that 
they are both HSA enabled, and the idea of being able to compile 
generic c/c++/d code and run it on the gpu without using special 
languages extensions(tho compiler support still needed) is what 
is interesting.

Amd's HSAIL bytecode, hMMu, shared gpu/cpu memory, and cache 
coherent GPU make the consoles very interesting, even if all of 
these things will be in desktop machines shortly after.
Jun 12 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On Wed, 12 Jun 2013 16:40:05 +1000
Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> wrote:


 On 11 June 2013 20:52, Nick Sabalausky
 <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com>wrote:
=20

 On Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:39:00 +0200
 "nazriel" <spam dzfl.pl> wrote:

 But there seem to be some quirks with those CPUs:

 http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ps4-and-xbox-one-s-amd-jaguar-cpu-exam=






ined/0116297

 Wow, given the abilities of the PS3 and 360, that article reads like
 the comments of a spoiled brat.


=20
 Abilities? I think they're thoroughly uninteresting and totally
 underwhelming hardware.
 They're pretty weak. I wish they'd stuck with (multiple) ridiculously
 high clocked PPC's personally.
=20


I don't doubt there's hardware out there with more raw power, but I'm
talking "abilities" in terms of observable end results here. Consider
for example Little Big Planet, the Cod: Modern Warfare series (yum,
fish! ;)), the upcoming "Time and Eternity", or really just about
anything involving Unreal Engine 3 (no offense intended to MAX-FX 3, of
course, I just haven't actually tried Alan Wake). Hell, even Wind
Waker, and that's previous generation.

Any extra computational power available typically goes primarily to
graphics (and some to physics and maybe some other things, too, but in
most cases it's primarily graphics). But the thing is, good graphics
has more to do with art direction than computational power. That was
always true to a certain extent (the 16-bit Sonics and Marios were far
better looking than most of the games on the N64/PS1/Sat), but with
modern hardware it's much more true now than ever, and will only
continue as hardware gets even more powerful.

The end result is that we've already hit a point where increased
hardware is only giving graphics increasingly marginal improvements:
More resolution and texture detail, more triangles, improved shadows,
etc. It's all just tweaking the details. And even that's relevant
mainly just to the decreasing proportion of games that are going for a
photorealistic or Pixar-like style. Things like Shank, Unfinished Swan,


Blood Dragon (fantastic game, BTW), looks mostly like something off of
the XBox 1 (the first XBox 1, not the upcoming new one).

Granted, there are other things besides graphics that can still be
improved with more raw power (ex, physics), but even for those it's
still mostly just improving details at this point. Even if MS/Sony had
gone with top-of-the-line hardware, there aren't a whole lot of truly
significant things that would have opened the door for (such as maybe
some gameplay based on good 3D fluid dynamics?), and even those things
would only be applicable to a minority of titles.

And I think the console manufactures are well aware of all this.
Definitely Nintendo is, who has long since switched gears from wowing
people with high-fidelity graphics to focus on providing fun games with
original interfaces at much more reasonable prices. The troubles they
had with this on the Wii mainly came from third parities reacting to
the lack of focus graphics-crunching by shunning the system (and yet
the Wii still managed alright). Sony's certainly taken note of the
value of indie titles, which are definitely not power-hungry in most
cases. And for any of the console manufacturers, it would be very
difficult not to notice how much harder it's becoming for the
computational-power-pushing AAA titles to flourish - increasingly
expensive to develop, increasingly necessary to get huge sales numbers
to stay profitable, increasing risk, and increasing competition from
inexpensive indie and otherwise non-AAA-blockbuster titles.



 I think it sounds encouraging: It means the next gen might not end up

 pulling a 3DO on price like their predecessors did. It damn near
 killed the PS3, which took Sony some major work to finally turn
 around.


=20
 Indeed, they're obviously designed to be cheap this time... or they'd
 be better, and more interesting ;)
=20


Yea, and I think it was necessary. Consider the mobile space: those
things routinely pack in $600+ worth of hardware and can get away with
it because it's at least partially subsidized by the nearly $100/mo
cellular contracts many users pay. (Plus many of them can hook up to
TVs and add-on gamepads).

Console hardware has the benefit of not needing to be mobile, but they
can't subsidize nearly as much as mobile can, so packing in truly
advanced hardware that's significantly beyond what you can get in other
devices would have led to a prohibitive price tag. Sony attempted that
in the early days of the PS3 but (along with its developer-unfriendly
nature) it damn near killed them until they revised the PS3 and did
their best to reverse their strategy. The same strategy *did* kill the
3DO.


 In any case, it is nice that they're using x86. Seems like a smart

 choice. I'll admit, when I first heard about it I was surprised at
 least one of them didn't go ARM, but x86 does seem to make more
 sense for a major games console at this particular point.


=20
 Personally, I think it's disappointing. x86's key advantage is being
 able to run crappy desktop code fast.
 Games are not usually 'crappy desktop code', they're carefully tuned,
 purpose-specific code.
 x86 uses MASSIVE amounts of its CPU realestate to tolerate crappy
 code. I'd rather use that CPU realestate on more raw power, and put
 the responsibility on the engines engineering merits to make the most
 of it.
=20
 This move sets a low upper limit, and the bar will start high. I don't
 anticipate you'll see much tier-ing between 1st gen -> 3rd/4th gen
 games this time round.
=20


Keep in mind, indie is *big* thing these days and I see no sign of
its growth leveling off any time soon. (Even a lot of the AAA houses
have started doing more games on an indie-like scale - the new Death
Rally, for example ;) ). Combined with the fact that the console
manufacturers have learned (the hard way, in some cases) that being
developer-friendly is absolutely critical, and I think that makes x86
the prudent choice, even if it isn't the most powerful choice.

=46rom your first DConf talk, it sounds like even your company has been
reaping some benefits from this. If the X Bone (or XBox 3, or "second"
XBox 1, or whatever the heck I should be calling it to disambiguate
from the one I bought ten years ago) had been using ARM or PPC, it
would have been harder (maybe even prohibitively so?) to integrate D
when you did.


 ARM might be better/more interesting than x86, but I actually still
 think PPC is a good architecture for the purpose. VMX/SPU is still
 the best SIMD unit.
=20


I don't doubt that. Especially since I really wouldn't know anyway :)
The last time I dealt with anything on that low-level, it was
Parallax's Propeller microcontroller, which is clearly not even in the
same ballpark. (A fun little device, though. An 8-core microcontroller
on roughly the price point of the BASIC Stamp? Yes, please!)
Jun 12 2013
prev sibling parent Max Klyga <email domain.com> writes:
On 2013-06-12 06:40:05 +0000, Manu said:

 Personally, I think it's disappointing. x86's key advantage is being 
 able to run crappy desktop code fast.
 Games are not usually 'crappy desktop code', they're carefully tuned, 
 purpose-specific code.
 x86 uses MASSIVE amounts of its CPU realestate to tolerate crappy code. 
 I'd rather use that CPU realestate on more raw power, and put the 
 responsibility on the engines engineering merits to make the most of it.
 
 This move sets a low upper limit, and the bar will start high. I don't 
 anticipate you'll see much tier-ing between 1st gen -> 3rd/4th gen 
 games this time round.
 
 ARM might be better/more interesting than x86, but I actually still 
 think PPC is a good architecture for the purpose. VMX/SPU is still the 
 best SIMD unit.


I thought that the main motivation behind move to x86 was to utilize 
existing toolchains, alowing usage of great compilers and tools and not 
some arcane or old toolchain.
Jun 12 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com> writes:
On 6/12/13, Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> wrote:

 Games are not usually 'crappy desktop code', they're carefully tuned,
 purpose-specific code.


I'd rather programmers spend their time building cool games than fast
games. Not everything has to be
ultra-realistic-shiny-3D-lens-flair-ultra-optimized-60fps crap.
Jun 12 2013
next sibling parent reply Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 01:10:34 +0200
Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com> wrote:


 On 6/12/13, Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> wrote:

 Games are not usually 'crappy desktop code', they're carefully
 tuned, purpose-specific code.


 
 I'd rather programmers spend their time building cool games than fast
 games. Not everything has to be
 ultra-realistic-shiny-3D-lens-flair-ultra-optimized-60fps crap.


Actually, I quite like 60Hz games ;) But that's been perfectly feasible
for a long long time: Really the only reason they haven't all been
running at 60Hz for the past 15 years is because graphical fidelity is
often considered more important than bumping up from 30Hz to 60Hz.

Not that I'm complaining about that. I can entirely understand the
tradeoff of settling for 30Hz for the sake of a higher quality image.
It's just not my preferred tradeoff - I'd normally prefer framerate.

(Of course getting a *consistent* framerate can be difficult, but
getting a higher one is fairly straightforward: Decrease the
polygon/texture budget.)

Although, there are a rare few games that manage top botch up the
tradeoff horrifically. Ex: The PS3 versions of Sonic Unleashed and
Splinter Cell frequently have absolutely *atrocious* framerates
despite the fact that the versions for *less* powerful systems (Wii and
the first XBox 1) run at consistently *good* framerates (Because for
those versions, they didn't try to cram too much into each frame and
overload the hardware).

Actually, that always bugged the hell out of me: That the at-the-time
"next-gen" PS3 versions actually ran vastly *worse* (barely even
playable, in fact) than the versions on notably *less* powerful
hardware. I know the PS3 is much more of a pain than the 360, but even
still: Something was clearly managed wrong. Especially with the Sonic
one which is heavily speed-oriented, therefore making framerate much
more important (Not that Sonic Unleashed didn't have other big problems,
though).

In any case, yea I do agree with you: I'll have a fun, low-graphics
game like Sound Shapes, Echochrome or last-gen Disgaea, over a
graphics-heavy-but-ultra-dull game like Assassin's Creed or
Heavy Rain any day.

Related to that: My absolute favorite game developer quote (because I
so strongly feel the same way) is from Johnathan Blow, creator of the
absolutely fantastic Braid (which incidentally is also *not* a
super-high-tech-graphics game):

"I like games that are interesting, that give me something to think
about or to be well-engaged in, that give me the benefit of the doubt
as being an intelligent person. Fewer games like that are being made
these days -- an awful lot of games are just about ushering the player
through a fake experience, letting him win, making him feel like he is
clever and strong without actually requiring him to be anything but a
couch potato. I'm not interested in playing those games, and as a
result of that (and other long-term design trends) these days there
aren't many games that I enjoy."
- From:
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/09/25/joystiq-interview-blow-unravels-braid-in-post-mortem/
Jun 12 2013
parent reply "deadalnix" <deadalnix gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 13 June 2013 at 06:43:21 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Actually, I quite like 60Hz games ;) But that's been perfectly 
 feasible
 for a long long time: Really the only reason they haven't all 
 been
 running at 60Hz for the past 15 years is because graphical 
 fidelity is
 often considered more important than bumping up from 30Hz to 
 60Hz.

 Not that I'm complaining about that. I can entirely understand 
 the
 tradeoff of settling for 30Hz for the sake of a higher quality 
 image.
 It's just not my preferred tradeoff - I'd normally prefer 
 framerate.

 (Of course getting a *consistent* framerate can be difficult, 
 but
 getting a higher one is fairly straightforward: Decrease the
 polygon/texture budget.)


I love rage for that. If the engine don't have everything it 
needs, it render something with a lower quality in order to keep 
the framerate high. The game is really enjoyable and have very 
few lags.
Jun 12 2013
next sibling parent reply "w0rp" <devw0rp gmail.com> writes:
You would get more power out of using another architecture, but I 
think being able to write the games in D is even more powerful. 
Plus, PS4 seems to smile on self-publishing. That's a big 
opportunity to shine as a rogue D games console developer.
Jun 13 2013
parent reply "deadalnix" <deadalnix gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 13 June 2013 at 07:23:11 UTC, w0rp wrote:

 You would get more power out of using another architecture, but 
 I think being able to write the games in D is even more 
 powerful. Plus, PS4 seems to smile on self-publishing. That's a 
 big opportunity to shine as a rogue D games console developer.


Do you have some news about that ? I'd really like to play with 
the PS4, it seems like an interesting machine to program on. 
Especially the unified memory model.
Jun 13 2013
next sibling parent "Peter Alexander" <peter.alexander.au gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 13 June 2013 at 09:18:17 UTC, deadalnix wrote:

 On Thursday, 13 June 2013 at 07:23:11 UTC, w0rp wrote:

 You would get more power out of using another architecture, 
 but I think being able to write the games in D is even more 
 powerful. Plus, PS4 seems to smile on self-publishing. That's 
 a big opportunity to shine as a rogue D games console 
 developer.


 Do you have some news about that ? I'd really like to play with 
 the PS4, it seems like an interesting machine to program on. 
 Especially the unified memory model.


http://kotaku.com/indie-developers-won-t-be-able-to-self-publish-on-xbox-509271999

"This news comes in stark contrast to Sony’s promises that indies 
will be able to self-publish content on the PS4."

I don't think there's much other details about it.
Jun 13 2013
prev sibling parent "ron" <rd.hunt gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 13 June 2013 at 09:18:17 UTC, deadalnix wrote:

 On Thursday, 13 June 2013 at 07:23:11 UTC, w0rp wrote:

 You would get more power out of using another architecture, 
 but I think being able to write the games in D is even more 
 powerful. Plus, PS4 seems to smile on self-publishing. That's 
 a big opportunity to shine as a rogue D games console 
 developer.


 Do you have some news about that ? I'd really like to play with 
 the PS4, it seems like an interesting machine to program on. 
 Especially the unified memory model.


It isn't simply unified like old consoles(xbox first?!) either, 
the GPU and CPU use the same virtual address space, and in fact 
the GPU supports full x86 addressing, and the gpu is connected to 
the CPU's cache coherency protocol.

Literally, HSA allows you to pass a pointer to your opencl or 
HSAIL compiled c/c++(hopefully D via llvm or gcc) code without 
copying to GPU memory and without having to remap memory to the 
GPU. The gpu sees the same physical memory through the hMMU 
giving it the same virtual address space as the rest of your 
application.

HSAIL bytecode is complex enough to allow c++ virtual functions 
to be properly accessed in GPU code.
Jun 13 2013
prev sibling parent reply Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 08:57:03 +0200
"deadalnix" <deadalnix gmail.com> wrote:

 
 I love rage for that. If the engine don't have everything it 
 needs, it render something with a lower quality in order to keep 
 the framerate high. The game is really enjoyable and have very 
 few lags.


Really? That's pretty cool, I didn't know about that aspect of the
engine.

What's the game itself like? There's no demo so I haven't been able
to try it (after Quake3 and Doom3 I'm hesitant to buy an id game without
tying it first). But being a huge fan of everything id's ever done up
through Quake 2, I can't help being extremely curious: What direction
does it take the gameplay? Back to say, Quake 2, or does it expand on
the gameplay of Doom 3, or something completely different?
Jun 13 2013
parent "deadalnix" <deadalnix gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 13 June 2013 at 08:01:38 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 08:57:03 +0200
 "deadalnix" <deadalnix gmail.com> wrote:

 
 I love rage for that. If the engine don't have everything it 
 needs, it render something with a lower quality in order to 
 keep the framerate high. The game is really enjoyable and have 
 very few lags.


 Really? That's pretty cool, I didn't know about that aspect of 
 the
 engine.


You can that here :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I91AG2BhcI

Obviously, this is an extreme example and you won't see that all 
the time during the game :D


 What's the game itself like? There's no demo so I haven't been 
 able
 to try it (after Quake3 and Doom3 I'm hesitant to buy an id 
 game without
 tying it first). But being a huge fan of everything id's ever 
 done up
 through Quake 2, I can't help being extremely curious: What 
 direction
 does it take the gameplay? Back to say, Quake 2, or does it 
 expand on
 the gameplay of Doom 3, or something completely different?


It is an fps. You find some moment where you can travel around 
with bugguy, do races and stuff, but the core of the game is 
really strong FPS like id knows how to do.

The game is very reactive, due to high framerate and also very 
beautiful. I really enjoyed it to the point I'd say that the main 
drawback is that the game is too short.
Jun 13 2013
prev sibling parent "Paulo Pinto" <pjmlp progtools.org> writes:
On Wednesday, 12 June 2013 at 23:10:47 UTC, Andrej Mitrovic wrote:

 On 6/12/13, Manu <turkeyman gmail.com> wrote:

 Games are not usually 'crappy desktop code', they're carefully 
 tuned,
 purpose-specific code.


 I'd rather programmers spend their time building cool games 
 than fast
 games. Not everything has to be
 ultra-realistic-shiny-3D-lens-flair-ultra-optimized-60fps crap.


That is why Unity, Flash, LibGDX, Cocos2D among others are being 
used more and more by indies.

Not everything needs to be AAA.
Jun 13 2013
prev sibling parent =?UTF-8?Q?Klaim_=2D_Jo=C3=ABl_Lamotte?= <mjklaim gmail.com> writes:
On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 1:10 AM, Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com

 wrote:



 I'd rather programmers spend their time building cool games than fast
 games. Not everything has to be
 ultra-realistic-shiny-3D-lens-flair-ultra-optimized-60fps crap.



Do you assume that non-realistic games don't need to have fast code?
It's not a correct assumption. It depends on the game and ultra-realistic
games are not the only
ones who are better with fast code or 60fps.

Basically, nothing can be generalized with games. Which is why more
opportunities to optimize are always welcome.
I suspect it's true for all kind of software in the end (even web services,
in particular massive web services).

Joel Lamotte
Jun 12 2013
prev sibling parent "John Colvin" <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 11 June 2013 at 09:39:01 UTC, nazriel wrote:

 It is really great opportunity. Some new Android smartphones 
 also are shipping with x86.


I have one myself, an Intel az-210. Impressive speed for a pretty 
cheap phone. I should really try getting D working on it somehow.


 But there seem to be some quirks with those CPUs:
 http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ps4-and-xbox-one-s-amd-jaguar-cpu-examined/0116297


I don't know about quirks, just general slowness. However, seeing 
as (at least the ps4 one) they are not stock versions, I'll 
reserve judgement until they get out to the public.
Jun 11 2013
prev sibling parent Benjamin Thaut <code benjamin-thaut.de> writes:
Am 11.06.2013 10:20, schrieb John Colvin:

 This has been known for a while, but I hadn't seen it mentioned here
 explicitly.

 Both consoles are using amd jaguar cpus, which is good news for us as
 druntime/phobos should in theory JustWork!


Well druntime/phobos highly depend on the operating system API and I 
highly doubt that the ps4 and xbox one will have a linux / windows api. 
So I don't think they will JustWork.

Kind Regards
Benjamin Thaut
Jun 11 2013