Welcome BabyBlue! Err. I mean NieceBlue, aka. BabyEgo ... or something :). Anyway, congratulations all around!

Can't wait to hear the first "BabyEgo meets Hudson" story

Assassins.
Watch Leon: The Proffessional. Now thats a great action hit man movie.

I don't think Blue meant that Stallone movie (although that one was cool too). I think I saw the Assassins he meant a few weeks ago - it's the one about that Mafia girl who seduces the female janitor and then they plot to steal a load of money from her husband, right?

After having seen the Matrix it is just soooo obvious that this movie is from the Wachowsky(sp?) brothers. The general feel is pretty similar, even though it's a completely different setting. And of course it already had one of the slow-motion-camera-pan-around-with-whooosh-sound scenes that we all know by now :).

Someone will just have to come up with an "Einstein Compensator" - Star Trek style - and everything will be fine

Anyway, it is important to keep in mind that the theory of relativity is only a theory. Every "law" in physics is only an explanation for current observations and while they allow us to predict how things may behave under other circumstances, those predictions are essentially only guesses. That's why going to the moon was so cool - no one could be sure that the same effects we experience on earth would also apply to the moon. So, if our astronauts had changed into small pink rubber chickens when setting foot on the moon all we could have said was "Ooops, well, looks like there are some variables missing in that equation".

So, what I was trying to say is that it is very possible that our current theories don't apply to deep space or high velocities in space or some other differences between "there" and earth.

still I really do think that when folks like us start showing up in places like old folks' homes, that activities like TV watching and bingo will be replaced by deathmatch... "Suck it down old timer!!!"

"Whut?"

"He said suck it down old timer!"

"Hrmph *cough*. I can still kick your arse if I want to!"

"Whut?"

"He said he can still kick your ass!"

"Yeah? Well, tell him he'sh full of sshit!"

"Whut?"

"He said you're full of shit!"

"Har Har *cough*. Sho why did I juarst win, you damn rr *cough* redneck?"

"Whut?"

"He said you lost!"

"? Tell him he musht be dead or shomeshing! Shhe game hashn't ended yet! An' I'm 2 pointsh ahead! Look, here: GrampaKiller - 31, Jack1337 - 29"

"Jack1337? Isn't Stephen's callsign Jack1338?"

Whut?

"I said do you play against Stephen?

Course not! Why would I play againsht thish shisshy? He'sh got no shkill

Whut?

"He said he plays against some Jack1337, not you!"

Then who's that blue guy that I just fragged?

What blue guy?

Whut?

I said, what blue guy?

That one! Ovear *cough* theare! Look, he just respoarned!

...
That? But that's a megahealth!!

Whut?

Whut?

I said that's ... oh, nevermind!.

This comment was edited on Jul 28, 12:34.

i cant see any reason why i should get NOLF2 or anyone else for that matter

Well, my reason is that it's the sequel to one of the FPS I have ever played. If it gets good reviews I'll certainly buy it.

Just wanted to mention that the Play Time link doesn't seem to work in Opera. So, if anyone only sees a black screen - try IE or something.

Same with Opera 6.04. It's probably not browser-specific.

I said they are brainless. And they are. People just project themselves onto animals.

Actually, that comment could work both ways :).

Don't take this wrong, I'm just kidding.

2) If you really want to understand what goes on in thier minds, think of them as a little woman in a cheap fur coat.

Now, how is that supposed to help?

You mean you actually understand women?

No thoughts went through it's "mind".

If you think cats aren't intelligent then you've obviously never had one. Cats are selfish little buggers, that won't stop at anything to manipulate humans to do what they want. And they are so good at it that you still like them, despite the fact that they always seem to regard you as some kind of rubbing and feeding machine that is otherwise part of the furniture.

Oh no. Ralph Wiggum is losing water again!

How do you not know that someone you live with is dead for 2 weeks?

Depends on the kind of people you know. I know some (possibly living) people who could be considered dead by some standards

I have played both games enough and wish I could be given a chance to design a game and show you how its done.

Uh, you have the chance right now. Create a mod and do everything right.

"Nature's Miracle Skunk Odor Remover" ???

How about "Mom's Old-Fashioned Dog Cleaning Stuff - With Vitamins!!"

I bet a good 3D engine programmer could find an efficient way to figure out if a character is fully occluded or not. Forget the complexity of the character model - a bounding box would be enough. Then it's a matter of the static world geometry.

A bounding box wouldn't make it all THAT much easier. You'd still have to test it against all environments polygons.

Besides, if you use a bounding box you get all sorts of weird effects, that you have to specifically test for. You think with a bounding box it is enough to test wether the corners are visible? Think again. Imagine a character behind a hole in a wall. It is possible that all corner points of the bounding box are occluded by the wall, but most of the character (maybe even the whole character) is visible. If you don't send the character to the video card based on the bounding box test, you're getting a wrong result.
This is far from being a trivial problem. And one that was already solved over a decade ago with hardware support for Z-Buffers.

If you're refering to the ZBuffer, that's still somewhat slow even with hardware acceleration as it's done on a pixel by pixel basis. I believe that's what those driver settings are disabling.

Yes, ZBuffering is one method to perform hardware visibility testing.

So occlusion culling, that is done at the polygon or object level, is in fact an optimization technique.

Yes, it is. But it can only be done for static geometry because to do it efficiently you need some pre-calculated data structures like BSP trees and the like. However, cheaters are not interested in seeing occluded walls or buildings, they are interested in seeing game characters. And game characters are definitely not static :).

As for the dynamic/non-trivial parts: that's what Z-Buffering is for. You COULD replace Z-Buffering with a different technique for characters (possibly old-fashioned polygon clipping), but that would be dead slow. And what would be the point of having hardware acceleration if it isn't used?

Now, if the games have better occlusion algorithms, that won't be much of an issue as the drivers will never receive the data about that player hiding behind the corner.

The problem is that you'd have to ditch hardware acceleration if you don't want to send the "invisible" parts to the driver. Finding out what is visible from the current point of view and what is not is actually one of the things that are "accelerated" by hardware acceleration.

Uhh, all these games a old, who's going to read reviews of games that are 6 months to a year old?

Mac users? Heh, just kidding

Just block anonymous posts if you don't want to see them. Duh.

The problem is that if you block them you miss some of the valid points that are sometimes made by anons. It can be hard to follow a discussion if you miss the messages that someone replied to.

I hope that, if the possibility for anon posting is removed altogether, those that want to contribute to a discussion in a constructive way will register while the "casual" trolls will go elsewhere.

By the way: my message was not meant as an affront to all anon posters. This issue has been discussed before and I just wanted to know if there is a decision yet.

Just wanted to ask if there has been a decision yet on wether to allow anonymous posting in the future.
I'm not sure if I'm the only one but I really don't like the tone that some (most?) of the recent discussions on this messageboard have been in. And while there are certainly some registered trolls around I have the impression that most of them are anons.

So, what's the status of this issue?