GDNet: Weekend Reading
by Drew -Gaiiden- Sikora · 09/26/2009 (1:45 am) · 5 comments
Entries from 9/11 - 9/24
I was doing so well last week, posting a sitrep, my weekly Daily, staying on top of emails... unfortunately when Friday came and the Austin GDC ended my brain completely shut down that afternoon and stayed off until Monday, when I realized I had forgotten to post a Weekend Reading. Dammit! So close. Anyways, here's your double dose of Weekend Reading goodness.
Journal Land Pick of the Week (9/18)
Merry Prankster Games - gdunbar's column "RPG Anvil" returns to discuss the various typs of adventures found in CRPGs
Journal Land Pick of the Week (9/25)
Radioactive-Software - dgreen02 drops another suitably large Warbots Online update, with suitably large images to go with it. Developer shots are included as well, which is always my favorite part. I'm a behind-the-scenes junkie.
Welcome back, khawk!
From The Staff
* Gaiiden's Scroll - I review my time at Austin GDC post mortem style in order to give myself advice for next year. Maybe you will get something out of my experience as well?
Project Updates
* IfThen Software LLC - Newsletter #46: ifThen Software Facebook page; the programmer has troubles with VS2010 beta; new iScribble sketches from the artist; A ton of community updates
* Promit's Ventspace - Promit announces the release of the iPhone/iTouch game he's helped to develop that makes use of the cool binaural audio system he discussed in an earlier entry featured here on Weekend Reading.
* Reinvention and Further Development of the Wheel - Staffan E has updated his working copy of Citizen for anyone who wants to give the 2D space shoot-em up a spin
* Tachyon Wars - johny5 has a new video of his space battles video screen as he sweeps the camera through a tangle of dogfights. Lasers and weapons coming next. Pew pew!!
Game Dev Stuffs
* Merry Prankster Games - gdunbar shares some RPG links to more on cursed items and how to make simple combat more interesting
* Chronicles of the Hieroglyph - Jason Z reminds everyone that the August 2009 DXSDK has been released
* Merry Prankster Games - gdunbar has dug up some links on storytelling through cutscenes or text exposition and what the difference is between procedural content and random content
Other Stuffs
* Not dead... - phantom has <strike>a few</strike>many choice words for Apple on their latest update for iTunes and how it borked the application for him, user-wise
* Not dead... - phantom snags himself a shiny new Radeon HD5870 and looks into the problems nVidia are now facing in light of this card's potential and in chipset manufacturing in general.
I was doing so well last week, posting a sitrep, my weekly Daily, staying on top of emails... unfortunately when Friday came and the Austin GDC ended my brain completely shut down that afternoon and stayed off until Monday, when I realized I had forgotten to post a Weekend Reading. Dammit! So close. Anyways, here's your double dose of Weekend Reading goodness.
Journal Land Pick of the Week (9/18)
Merry Prankster Games - gdunbar's column "RPG Anvil" returns to discuss the various typs of adventures found in CRPGs
Journal Land Pick of the Week (9/25)
Radioactive-Software - dgreen02 drops another suitably large Warbots Online update, with suitably large images to go with it. Developer shots are included as well, which is always my favorite part. I'm a behind-the-scenes junkie.
Welcome back, khawk!
From The Staff
* Gaiiden's Scroll - I review my time at Austin GDC post mortem style in order to give myself advice for next year. Maybe you will get something out of my experience as well?
Project Updates
* IfThen Software LLC - Newsletter #46: ifThen Software Facebook page; the programmer has troubles with VS2010 beta; new iScribble sketches from the artist; A ton of community updates
* Promit's Ventspace - Promit announces the release of the iPhone/iTouch game he's helped to develop that makes use of the cool binaural audio system he discussed in an earlier entry featured here on Weekend Reading.
* Reinvention and Further Development of the Wheel - Staffan E has updated his working copy of Citizen for anyone who wants to give the 2D space shoot-em up a spin
* Tachyon Wars - johny5 has a new video of his space battles video screen as he sweeps the camera through a tangle of dogfights. Lasers and weapons coming next. Pew pew!!
Game Dev Stuffs
* Merry Prankster Games - gdunbar shares some RPG links to more on cursed items and how to make simple combat more interesting
* Chronicles of the Hieroglyph - Jason Z reminds everyone that the August 2009 DXSDK has been released
* Merry Prankster Games - gdunbar has dug up some links on storytelling through cutscenes or text exposition and what the difference is between procedural content and random content
Other Stuffs
* Not dead... - phantom has <strike>a few</strike>many choice words for Apple on their latest update for iTunes and how it borked the application for him, user-wise
* Not dead... - phantom snags himself a shiny new Radeon HD5870 and looks into the problems nVidia are now facing in light of this card's potential and in chipset manufacturing in general.
About the author
#2
09/26/2009 (3:29 am)
Physx is far from dead, hundreds of nextgen video games are currently in development using Physx. Devs are not going to drop it because of some other new technology which emerged. Phantoms trying to find an excuse for spending all that money on a "shiny new" card... the death of Physx. NVIDIA RULES! 
#3
09/26/2009 (10:46 am)
@OmegaDog: I say someone do a PhysX comparison to Havok and lets see if we can flips some minds at GG... ;) 
#4
On PhysX... its not dead... but its future is hazy. Their new push with Apex has us taking renewed interest in it.
And remember PhysX isn't exlusively GPU physics... it is still a REALLY good multicore physics solver. I've still not seen a case of GPU physics being good for gameplay effecting interactions and not just special effects.
So while i wished PhysX would use ATI GPU acceleration i'm not concered about it enough to throw out the tools that Apex provides.
09/26/2009 (6:23 pm)
@Matt - There isn't any minds to flip... as it has been stated several times over T3D will support multiple physics packages in the end.On PhysX... its not dead... but its future is hazy. Their new push with Apex has us taking renewed interest in it.
And remember PhysX isn't exlusively GPU physics... it is still a REALLY good multicore physics solver. I've still not seen a case of GPU physics being good for gameplay effecting interactions and not just special effects.
So while i wished PhysX would use ATI GPU acceleration i'm not concered about it enough to throw out the tools that Apex provides.
#5
I have been pursuing Apex for a few months now, I was thinking the same thing as nVidia if we provide the best they will come, ATI is being bullheaded trying to rely on loyal Havock & Bullet devs to back OpenCL which does waste thousands of GPU cycles that PhysX does not thanks to CUDA.
09/26/2009 (7:01 pm)
My post was in response to the last article. I have been pursuing Apex for a few months now, I was thinking the same thing as nVidia if we provide the best they will come, ATI is being bullheaded trying to rely on loyal Havock & Bullet devs to back OpenCL which does waste thousands of GPU cycles that PhysX does not thanks to CUDA.
Associate OmegaDog