pouët.net

The reason why I'm doing anything for low power PC's is the same as why I don't do anything for DS. I have two fetishes: Either I want to do something where using the hardware optimally (or very cleverly) is a necessity to do something cutting edge (GBA), or I want loads of power and freedom of creativity (PC).

Netbook is kind of a "fake" limitation in my eyes. However, I would seriously take my hats off to anyone who manages to create something mildly mindblowing on an Intel GMA.

Atomium

well, it's probably better than the PSX or PSP graphics (how does it hold up against a WII?!) so technical limitations shouldn't be an excuse.
You obviously just can't port any modern pixel shader stuff to this "platform".

I think that win32 prods should have a "tag" describing the graphics card performance class, anyway (like on notebookcheck.com for example). it's a bit unfair to compare a 2000 opengl 1.1 (or even SW rendering) win32 demo to a 2009 opengl 3.x one, for example (resp. put them in the same category).

regarding your "fetish": I second that thought :-)

although, one fatal mistake that "notebookcheck" guys made was that < = better, so what's next.. class 0, class -1, .. ? :P
..maybe it'd be better to use the actual chip/card name as a tag for win32 demos...
(like in "lamest card required to run the demo in full frame rate")
..how is pouet v2 coming alone, anyway ? :)

-e+g..

to end the posting spree on topic: I'd rather get one of these instead (yea, still waiting):



(based on beagleboard rev c, ARM cortex A8 @600Mhz + TI C64+ DSP @450Mhz)

to end the posting spree on topic: I'd rather get one of these instead (yea, still waiting):



(based on beagleboard rev c, ARM cortex A8 @600Mhz + TI C64+ DSP @450Mhz)

GMA950 is a horrible, horrible pile of shit. You'd have to be pretty seriously insane to make that your 'platform' of choice.

Actual performance isn't too bad, and it does 'support' shaders. The problem with it is that 1. the drivers are a total pile of bug ridden shit (at least on osx, and I understand windows isn't much better), and 2. half of the stuff it 'supports' are 'supported' in the driver only. I.e. if you use it, it runs in software on the CPU, not on the GPU. In some cases, that means if you use the wrong feature somewhere that thing runs in software, and a ton of other stuff decides to follow it, and you're suddenly running an extremely slow software engine.

I honestly wouldn't ever buy a machine with GMA 950 for anything other than office use :)

I think Blala has the right idea.

I'm with psonice on this one. Though my EeePC 1000h is nice, the chipset graphics are a pile of crap. I'd take someone seriously masochistic to develop for that thing... Like writing demos in Brainfuck. lol. ...wait... ;)

push

Hermes: what's that called?
Is there any new notebook with an intel 4500MHD? Can it run modern demos at 1fps?

On the flipside, the Atom/D945/GMA950 platform is cheap, very prevalent in the netbook market. It's very likely that people can get their hands on it -unlike some of the stuff people touted here.

The insanity diagnosis applies to a lot of demosceners anyway -after all, what exactly is the fun of coding for 8-bit machines again? :)

There are quite a few, especially business notebooks and cookie cutter low cost notebooks that come with this chip. And it's not _that_ bad really. You should get somewhat reasonable framerates out of it.

I'm holding my breath for good/cheapish Nvidia ION Note/Netbooks...

hermes, I'm still waiting for mine to arrive, too. :(

hmm my 945GM seams indeed capable of doing some very simple vertex and fragmentprograms indeed ( only through ARB_vertex_program & ARB_fragment_program though) . Dont know if i should bother

the hardware might be capable, don't bank on the driver supporting it.

Yes they are, as the platform IS NOT LIMITED ENOUGH.

It seems the Intel Compiler optimizes code for it, it probably fixes the instruction order in a better way than the other compilers. In-order / Out-of-order optimizations.

Joghurt: hehe, yes. I got me an NDS just recently to shorten the wait (bought one as a present 3 years ago but never had one myself). that's definitely a nice machine even if the specs sound "so lala".
I hope the Pandora (and other Omap35x based devices) will have better software than the GP2X.
The NDS homebrew scene really has a couple of quality releases
(e.g. SNES/Genesis/NeoGeo emulators running at full frame rate,
MP3/OGG (hi bitrate) media player, Linux (of course..), native Giana Sisters and IK ports/remakes, C64 emulator that plays River Raid (with sound..) better than the GP2X)
..and all that with some "poor" 67Mhz ARM9 (main CPU) and 33Mhz ARM7 (secondary CPU for WLan, Sound, ..). Probably shows what proper coding can do :)

If anyone who is familiar with NDS dev. reads this: What's the best practice to shorten the turnaround-cycle (compile, run) ?
I don't want to resort to emulators and the constant SD-card swapping is tiresome.
Is there some software that installs itself to a fixed mem.location, waits for WIFI uploads, runs the code which can exit by jumping to a re-entry point in that kind of "net-loader" ?
(so far I've found DSftp but it's dog slow)

totally "on topic" ofcourse :*) ^^

Ye-Ti: Slow hardware v2.0 pixel shaders + SOFTWARE vertex shaders...

^^ true.

oh my..just written that blob of text, then checked out heise.de and they say that Nintendo is going on a witch hunt for homebrew module retailers..bad news :/

well, certainly these modules allow to run "backup" copies but WTF, I buy every game that is worth playing and they already sold like +80 million NDS devices alone and are now seeking help from the MI ? WTF.

I wish that large-scale companies like that would start to take a kind of responsibility in favour of their users, not treating them like thieves.

Profit isn't everything, Nintendo ! (and you make good bucks already!)

*sigh* Well the most obvious two reasons are
1.Challenge
2.Nostalgia

But there are many, many, many other reasons. Like "Because I can" and "*my* artistic sensibilities".

And maybe I am insane not to be the least bit impressed by realistic 3D engines with shaders, etc. etc.

But, sane or not, I remain unimpressed by 99.9% of Windows demos made over the last (for arguments sake) fifteen years. So you can make a spinning cube with a shader, so frikin what! It's only a couple of library calls to DirectX or whatever. Do it on a C64 and I'll be impressed.

Oh and limitations of HW often drive the need for good design more so than on modern platforms. A newschool demo with poor design looks a little mediocre, an Oldschool demo with poor design looks *shite*. So if you want to make a good demo for 8-Bit machines, you NEED good design.

Oh, and it's funny, mabye it's my insanity again, but I find shite far more entertaining than mediocrity.

oh my, the fish do bite.