alanschu

Oh yeah, I'd seen that cartoon. Sam and Ralph. They were good buddies who went to work together. They were just on the opposite ends of things. My quotes weren't from them though, unless it was cryptomnesia.

Not always. Venture capitalists often just provide capital to someone with a business model that they believe in. Again, it' similar to the stock markets. People can and do invest large amounts of money into companies via the stock market and they don't have control over projects.

w00t w00t I couldn't see the game because we don't have digital cable. But I had free passes to Yuk Yuk's instead.

I always love the "forward looking" statements in press releases.

Heh nope. As for the power supply, I know it wasn't the power supply. One, because I swapped the power supply, and two because when I swapped the motherboard with my original power supply it ran perfectly. Though I do know that poor power supplies can cause huge problems too.

I've only briefly covered the genetic algorithm, but it looked pretty neat. Most of my formal education is still elementary Artificial Intelligence, but I did work with Dr. Michael Buro (he made Logistello, the AI that demolished the world champion in Othello 6-0) on his ORTS project his summer. Just in case people don't believe me, Here's the link. Scroll down and you'll find my name (Allan Schumacher) as a contributor. It was basically my first real foray into AI and has me seriously considering the idea of applying for graduate school in the field of Artificial Intelligence. I guess my school (University of Alberta) is actually quite reknowned for it's AI department (though CompSci as a whole is worried that we're becoming too specialized). I was at a talk by Electronic Arts and their University Liason (John Buchanan) basically said that their games group, led by Johnathan Schaefer is one of the most prolific AI departments in the world. They made a fully adaptive learning AI for one of the FIFA games (I think 2004). The only reason why EA has chosen to not implement it is that adaptive AIs do not have a static knowledge base, which "scares" them. While it probably wouldn't happen, they are concerned that a bug hidden in there somewhere might not come out for some while, at which time it manipulates the knowledge base in some way that the AI no longer performs properly. Given the dynamic nature of adaptive AI, it's pretty difficult to test all possible inputs. It's really cool stuff. Apparently Johnathan Schaefer's Chinook AI for Checkers is recognized as the first AI to win in a human world championship. It was cool seeing Russell and Norvig cite the works of both Chinook and Logistello in our AI textbook as well.

As long as I can abuse the "snooze" function on that alarm clock It'd probably be best if the alarm clock just saved the game, booted you from the game, shut down your computer, and tossed you into bed.

That's not correct. I must have missed the Pasta versions EDIT: Just in case anyone (i.e. Hades) feels Dragon Age is vapourware, Bioware is taking part in the University of Alberta's Industrial Internship Program with the intention of hiring people to work on Dragon Age. I was also at a talk on campus yesterday where the speaker gave an overview of the Eclipse Engine and how various things like scripting and AI will work with the Eclipse Engine.

So investment for a cut of the profits ? Seems strange since you end up feeding more mouths. In my experience the only time I've seen "altruistic" investment is as the first step in a long term "soft" takeover. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> What do you mean? It's just like when I buy stock in a company. Buying stocks IS investing in a company. And the reason why I buy stock in a company is so that I can accumulate some of the money, usually when the company issues dividends. It's pretty much how large corporations run. I invest my money, and you give me some sort of return on investement in exchange for using my capital for your purposes. It's really not any different that putting your money in a bank account (which is essentially you investing in the bank, and they give you a nominal return). The only difference is that a bank account won't get you the return on investment that investing in stocks is all about. It's not that Bioware now has "more" mouths to feed. They just got a HUGE influx of capital, at which they can now ramp up development even more. It also pulls publishers out of the equation, as they are the primary sources of capital for game development right now.

Ah, so now you are referring to a "standard" GPU. The Graphics Synthesizer is just like the GPUs prior to the GeForce. IT (and not the CPU) performed the instructions for the rendering and filtering and whatnot directly on hardware. The CPU did none of these calculations, and it was the standard since 3dfx released the original Voodoo chipset in the mid 1990s. The graphics responsibilities of the CPU was the geometery calculations. As for the "part of" the CPU problem, you are employing straw man. It was you that said that the Emotion Engine was part of the CPU. This is also not correct. The Emotion Engine IS in effect the CPU. Don't mislead the statement by trying to state the following: I never made any claim along the lines of what you said. You said that the Emotion Engine was part of the CPU. The Emotion Engine is the amalgamation. You cannot claim that it is "part of" anything, when it is the ENTIRE thing. When you say gems like "I believe there is far more code than simple "choice" strings that create a fully dynamic and robust AI" you pretty much stamped "I have no idea wtf I'm talking about regarding AI and just regurgitate the stuff I read on the internet" on your forehead. As for the rest of your points, I couldn't care less. I haven't really gotten into much discussion with you about any of it because I don't care about any of it. Until we actually have the final products for either, everything they discuss IS hype. I tried having a dicussion about unified memory mentioning that it can have drawbacks, such as how it is done on PC machines where the video shares the same memory, but your "constructive reply" was just "A PC is not a console." Hades' comment of "a computer is a computer" is still an accurate one though. If something is a clearcut advantage on a console, then it should be a clear cut advantage on any computer as well. I actually don't disagree with you that a unified memory architecture has definite merits, and was trying to actually have a discussion with you about them. Unfortunately you opted for a snarky reply instead. Finally, there is no point in discussing hardware technicalities with you, when you have demonstrated a lack of understanding of it with current technology. The situation is compounded by the fact that you obtuse in your (lack of) understanding. It's clear you are going to stick to your guns regarding the CPU performing all the graphics calculations despite the fact that it is 100% incorrect. The Emotion Engine DOES calculate the geometry and passes that information to the graphics synthesizer. But there's a lot more to graphics than just geometry.

They aren't related to EA. Of course you also refused to play PC games as well.

Makes you wonder whats in it for Elevation dosnt it ? The only thing that makes sense to me is that they are being "groomed" for an eventual takeover. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> What's in it is money for Elevation. Which is why most investments happen.

I thought this was already covered. Ars Technia "The Emotion Engine is sort of a combination CPU and DSP Processor" Oh well, nice talking with you. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's not what you were saying earlier though. The Emotion Engine is the core of the PS2. You were saying that it was just a part of the PS2's processor, when it's the amalgamation of the various cores and Vector Units existing on the processor. How can something be PART OF (as you indicated) the CPU, when the sum of its parts includes the CPU? What does the Graphics Synthesizer of the PS2 do again? You should stop claiming to have some sort of technical knowledge about anything, when it's clear you don't really know what you're talking about. And you can't try to backtrack what you say either (ala the 64-bit numbers bull**** and now the Emotion Engine garbage). The funny thing is, what exactly have you accomplished here? I've never seen someone dense enough to keep coming to a place where people all know he's full of it, and basically has zero influence on any of their decisions. You have no credibility on these boards (justifiably so, given you're wrong about so many things), which is why people are intentionally obtuse to you, regardless of what you say. You criticize people for being "buying into the Sony hype" when you've done the exact same thing with Microsoft's hype.

Top of the line video cards are generally overpriced. I haven't checked recently, but I know that they used to hover in like the 400 dollar range. A quick check indicates that that seems to be the case.

He once had DUAL 500 GB drives (yes, past tense, meaning he had them long before the cheap 3.5" versions came out). Money is clearly no object for him

Well, am I allowed to be smart with my money? I don't recall being forced to buy all components at once, am I? My CPU is plenty good right now, and my Video card is still good enough, but would probably be my next upgrade. Didn't the GC debut at $199 and the other two at >$300?

Pfft. Experience is experience.

I still have to wait for their placements to open up. Though on the plus side, based on my grades and resume, Electronic Arts has requested a telephone interview with me (according to my school's internship coordinator). I wouldn't mind doing an internship at Electronic Arts either (it's in Vancouver so it'd still be an easy move for me), but the one that they are interested in for me is only an 8 month internship starting in January. I'm interested in the 16 month ones that open up in May.

Depends on how involved Elevation tries to be in the development. Considering they aren't your typical game publisher, this could actually be a good thing. However, I see them as being for the most part just an investor. This brings in a huge influx of capital, while (like most publicly traded companies) still go in the direction of the CEO and the rest of the staff employeed by the respective companies.

What is the starting retail value for most consoles? Didn't the playstation debut at $400 or so? I was basing things on around $300-$400 for each console on average. That would give me $900-$1200 for a computer. Considering many costs such as monitor, hard drive, etc. etc. don't need to be upgraded, I can get a killer computer for that value (in fact I did ).

On the plus side it seems my chances of getting a 16 month internship there is better than ever. (w00t)

That is the evidence thus far as I see it. Or at least could not continue to put out those numbers without "restructuring". <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The sample size is too small to draw conclusions. Many game companies have games that don't perform up to expectations, and they don't disappear just because of it.

I'm not saying it did (or did not) underperform. But it seems like you're making generalizations that Bioware cannot do their own IP.

What? No mention about the Emotion Engine part of the PS2 CPU?

Heres the totals from my last generations consoles purchases. PS2