Well thats what MD5 and SHA160 is for (amongst many others).

So as you can check that you have an unhacked version of the binarys.

A matter of moments to calculate and a web download for the hash value calculator.

Kilby...

I'm not denying what the person (people) have done to Valve. It's Valves licensing revenue that will suffer.

That is an incredibly bad thing to happen, however most licensed game engines require major fairly a extensive rewrite to meet the criteria for a new project. Therefore don't overestimate the problem either

Like it or not game coders 'borrow' source code, game engines and development tools, anybody who says otherwise obviously dosn't know any game coders. They are for the most part magpies.

There will be a lot of home projects and experiments on coders home machines using licensed engines. It's just that the public hasn't seen them.

However for HL2 there is no reason to affect it's development (unless the source has been tampered with).

Development staff don't have to concentrate on security, you hire proper security staff or contractors.

Ingame security, well theres plenty of crypto algorythms for key generation & exchange, simply switch algorhythm (security through obscure algo is no form of security whatsoever).

Anyway all the real key security work will be in Valves servers, so unless that code has been stolen there is still no problem.

As for ingame cheating, well that happens no matter what developers do, that's why I only play against people that I know.

Regards,

Kilby...

OK so the source was robbed, cos they used outlook and didn't have an IDS system. Yes it's a massive problem for Valve, but not really for the game or us

Thats no reason to delay the release of the game, infact it's more of a reason to get it into the shops ASAP.

It won't make cheating any more prevalant believe me, a counter is a counter, and a status byte is a status byte.

Release the game then start rewriting sections of it so the stolen source becomes redundant, then release the updates as patches.

Kilby...

This comment was edited on Oct 9, 10:20.

Bugger the Xfiles,

Apparently there is a new movie out, showing the DX 9 effects.

THis is a link to some stills from the movie.
http://collective.valve-erc.com/index.php?news=1063319154-65935800

---------------
I was not seriously trying to start some conspiracy theory thing. Or, again, start some API debate.

It was just a way of making a point, and that was that these benchmarks are to be questioned
---------------

No problem, but I will say that what you meant and what you typed do appear to differ

I was only responding to what was on screen.

As long as it runs on my home machine with a Ti4200 I will be happy, I just want quality gameplay (hopefully at the end of this month) as I bought a new guitar instead of a gfx card.

Ermm,

Sorry butI really have to say this,

Snip ---
So then if a 3 year old video card in OpenGL outperforms current gen card in DX9, why in the hell would anyone use DX9

/Snip ---

Ermm because most of the advanced stuff (ie recent hardware advances) is done via OpenGL extensions which are up to the whims of the GFX card mfgrs as to how they are implemented.


Snip ---

So, again, if these benchmarks are true, the programming does SUCK and it is true. Now, if they did something to "hurt" NV's performance, then they still suck/are shitty.

/Snip ---

Read what you have said, obviously Valve don't want to sell any games to Nvidia owners, they don't want to make money, they're just happy with ATI patting them on the head.

For christs sake grow up, stop watching reruns of the X Files and stop wearing that tinfoil hat on your head (aliens are not reading your mind.)

Possibly this will enlighten you.

Just possibly if you really decide to turn on every gfx & audio option turned up full the game will run slowly.

Debugging code will usually be present till the final few compiles, this can have significant effects on execution speed.

If you add that the compiler isn't set to optimise for speed (ie no loop unrolling) things will run slower.

Usually the last few builds are compiled twice. That is with no optimisations, and fully optimised.

Why ?

Sometimes the compiler simply gets things wrong, sometimes you have assumed somthing.

If the regular build is fine and the optimised has a problem, then it's time to check your code carefully.

That means that there is less patches released to the customer

However all this will still shop the relative speeds of GFX cards.

Kilby...

I notice that Nvidia passed no comment regarding Gabe Newells comments regarding "unamed manufacturers" drivers ?

Strange they didn't mention it.

As I remember it, Nvidia refused to implement certain DX shaders because it was ATI who proposed them to Microsoft (are they going to say that the ATI are pushing Microsoft around ?)

Hmmm, why not quote benchmarks for the unreleased V50 drivers ?

Well for precicely that reason, they are unreleased. Is there any tweaks in V50 to show things in a better light ? Well I dunno and neither do the dev team in Valve as they're too busy working on the game to start pulling apart the drivers.

Also have you ever downloaded a new generation of driver and your machine isn't happy afterwards. I certainly have (not just Nvidia drivers either).

Until the final release version is given to you you don't benchmark with them.

Yes I remember the ATI of old with their drivers (I switched to the TNT).

It strikes me that Nvidia are a bit too touchy about any criticism these days, which usually means somthing (but I dunno what.)

As for AA & Filtering I'm usually too busy trying to play the bloody game to worry about those things.

Kilby...

Not only can the microwave downlink go out of control.

But what will power the cities do when the moon is around the otherside of the earth ?

I know !

1: Lets have huge storage batterys to store power for those times.

or

2: Fit large rocket motors to the moon then park it over the US as nowhere else in the world requires electrictity, wind, tides or waves.

Methinks some researchers cant tell the difference between their arse and their elbow.

Being a systems programmer (ie somebody who still meets assembly language), the main reason is likely to be a copy protection problem, for install and game starting problems..

As Jo Wood use securom and that has been through major upgrades recently this is a very likely cause.