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• Listen to Online Radio with Antenna

  - by Asian Angel

  Are you looking for some fresh new music to listen to at home or at work? With Antenna you can listen to online radio stations from all over the world. Note: Requires Adobe AIR (download link at bottom of article). Antenna in Action Once you have completed the installation and started Antenna up this is the window that you will see. The left side will have a “browsing pane” where you can search for the stations that you would like to listen to using the various categories. Based on the stations that you choose the background map will change location to match the stations locations. Here is a closer look at the “Categories Bar”. For our first example we used the “Country Category” to find our first station to listen to. When you choose a country you will be presented with a list of the stations available for that country. To start listening to a particular station just double click on the appropriate entry line. A closer look at the “browser pane” with our first station playing. Notice the “Reliability Indicator” that will be available for each listing…some may be better than others and you can use this to choose the best streaming stations from the list. In the upper left corner you will notice three icons…each will open a small pop-up window with a specific purpose. The first icon will open up the “About Window”. If you need to contact Antenna’s creator or would like to place a request for a station to be added to the app then this is the best way to do it. The second icon will open up a Antenna specific chat window. The third icon will allow you to set a default location and make adjustments to some of the app’s settings. Recording Audio The “Recording Function” is the only area where we experienced some “quirkiness” with the app. To start recording press the “Round White Button”… Note: Based on feedback on the app creator’s webpage some people have experienced the same problem as we did during our tests with the app failing to complete the recordings. Hopefully this bug will be fixed with the next release. Once recording has started the button will turn red. Click on the button again to stop recording. Once you have stopped recording you will see the following message window appear and the main window will be shaded over with a whitish color until you click “OK”. Conclusion Regardless of the slight quirkiness in recording online music Antenna more than makes up for it with the terrific selection of online stations and streaming capability. New fresh music for you to listen to is only a click or two away… Links Download Antenna (Antenna Homepage) Download Antenna at Softpedia Download Adobe AIR Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Listen to Local FM Radio in Windows 7 Media CenterListen to Over 100,000 Radio Stations in Windows Media CenterListen To XM Radio with Windows Media Center in Windows 7Listen and Record Over 12,000 Online Radio Stations with RadioSureWeekend Fun: Watch Television on Your PC with AnyTV TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Will it Blend? iPad Edition Penolo Lets You Share Sketches On Twitter Visit Woolyss.com for Old School Games, Music and Videos Add a Custom Title in IE using Spybot or Spyware Blaster When You Need to Hail a Taxi in NYC Live Map of Marine Traffic

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• Using the JRockit Flight Recorder as an Exception Profiler.

  - by Marcus Hirt

  There is a lot of new data points in the JRockit Flight Recorder compared to the data available in the old JRA. One set of data deals with exceptions and where they are thrown. In JRA, it was possible to tell how many exceptions were thrown, but it was not possible to determine from where they were thrown. Here is how to do a recording with exception profiling enabled from JRockit Mission Control. 1. Right click on the JVM to profile, select Start Flight Recording. 2. Select the Profiling with Exceptions template.   3. Wait for the recording to finish. The count down for the time left will show in the Flight Recorder Control view. 4. When done the recording will automatically be downloaded and displayed. To show the exceptions, go to the Code | Exceptions tab.

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• Partitioning Windows 7 so I can use ubuntu

  - by thommo1919

  I have been recording happily using Audacity for many years but after upgrading to Windows 7, the latency has meant that recording music is impossible. My mate suggested partitioning my hard drive, installing ubuntu on it and then using this alongside Windows. He reckons I can use music recording software then on the partitioned Ubuntu drive without the latency problems. A few questions: a) Is my mate correct? b) How do I go about doing the partition and installing? c) What music recording software would you recommend? Many many thanks to anyone who can help me.

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• How to change the volume of left channel using pulseaudio

  - by user2622247

  I am recording the video using logitech camera and bluetooth microphone. Logitech can used for recording both audio and video. When I turn on bluetooth microphone in the middle of recording, it is replacing the logitech audio channel due to this we are getting the bluetooth audio from the left channel. But when I turn off the bluetooth then I get the logitech audio on left channel but the volume is very low and also getting the some noise. I am using PulseAudio and ffmpeg for recording purpose. So how can I increase / change the volume of left channel during runtime?

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• Are you reporting Visual Studio 2012 issues to Microsoft correctly?

  - by Tarun Arora

  Issues you may run into while using Visual Studio need to be reported to the Microsoft Product Team via the Microsoft connect site. The Microsoft team then tries to reproduce the issue using the details provided by you. If the information you provide isn’t sufficient to reproduce the issue the team tries to contact you for specifics, this not only increases the cycle time to resolution but the lack of communication also results in issues not being resolved. So, when I report an issue one part of me tells me to include as much detail about the issue as I can clubbing screen shots, repo steps, system information, visual studio version information,… the other half tells me this is so time consuming, leave it for now and come back to fill all these details later. Reporting a bug but not including the supporting information is an invitation to excuses like …     Microsoft has absolutely changed this experience for VS 2012. The Microsoft Visual Studio Feedback tool is designed to simplify the process of providing feedback and reporting issues to Microsoft that you may encounter while using Microsoft Visual Studio 2012. Note – The Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Feedback client currently only works for VS 2012 and not any other versions of Visual Studio. Setting up the Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Feedback client Open Visual Studio, from the Tools menu select Extension and Updates. In the Extension and Updates window, click Online from the left pane and search using the text ‘feedback’, download and Install Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Feedback Tool by following the instructions from the wizard. Note - Restarting Visual Studio after the install is a must! How to report a bug for Visual Studio 2012? Click on the Help menu and choose Report a Bug You should see an icon Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Feedback Tool come up in the system tray icon area You’ll need to accept the Privacy statement. You have the option of reporting the feedback as private or public. Microsoft works with several Partners, MVP’s and Vendors who get access to early bits of Microsoft products for valuation. This is where it becomes essential to report the feedback privately. I would choose the Public option otherwise. After all if it’s out there in the public, others can discover and add to it easily. You now have the option to report a new issue or add to an existing issue. Should you choose to add to an existing issue you should have the feedback ID of the issue available. This can be obtained from the Microsoft Connect site. For now I am going to focus on reporting a new feedback privately. Filling out the feedback details You will notice that VsInfo.xml and DxDiagOutput.txt are automatically attached as you enter this screen (more on that later).  Feedback Type Choose the feedback type from (Performance, Hang, Crash, Other) Note – The record button will only be enabled once you have enabled once you have chosen the feedback type, Bug-repro recording is not available for Windows Server 2008.     Effective Title and Description Enter a title that helps us differentiate the bug when it appears in a list, so that we can group it with any related bugs, assign it to a developer more effectively, and resolve it more quickly. Example: Imagine that you are submitting a bug because you tried to install Service Pack 1 and got a message that Visual Studio is not installed even though it is. Helpful:  Installed Visual Studio version not detected during Service Pack 1 setup. Not helpful:  Service Pack 1 problem. Tip: Write the problem description first, and then distil it to create a title. Example Description: Helpful: When I run Service Pack 1 Setup, I get the message "No Visual Studio version is detected" even though I have Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate and Visual C++ 2010 Express installed on my machine. Even though I uninstalled both editions, and then first reinstalled Ultimate and then Express, I still get the message. Record: Becoming a first class citizen Often a repro report is invaluable to describe and decipher the issue. Please use this feature to send actionable feedback. The record repro feature works differently depending on the feedback type you selected. Please find below details for each recording option. You can start recording simply by selecting a feedback type, and clicking on the “Record” button. When "Performance" is the bug type: When the Microsoft Visual Studio trace recorder starts, perform the actions that show the performance problem you want to report and then click on the "Stop Recording" button as soon as you experience the performance problem. Because the tool optimizes trace collection, you can run it for as long as it takes to show the problem, up to two hours. Note that, you need to stop recording as soon as the performance issue occurs, because the tool captures only the last couple minutes of your actions to optimize the trace collection. After you stop the recording, the tool takes up to two minutes to assemble the data and attach an ETLTrace.zip file to your bug report. The data includes information about Windows events and the Visual Studio code path. Note that, running the Microsoft Visual Studio trace recorder requires elevated user privilege. When "Crash" is the bug type: When the dialog box appears, select the running Visual Studio instance for which you want to show the steps that cause a crash. When the crash occurs, click on the "Stop Record" button. After you do this, two files are attached to your bug report - an AutomaticCrashDump.zip file that contains information about the crash and a ReproSteps.zip file that shows the repro steps. Repro steps are captured by Windows Problem Steps Recorder. Note that, you can pause the recording, and resume later, or for a specific step, you can add additional comments. When "Hang" is the bug type: The process for recording the steps that cause a hang resembles the one for crashes. The difference is, you can even collect a dump file after the VS hangs; start the VSFT either from the system tray or by starting a new instance of VS, select "Hang" as feedback type and click on the "Record" button. You will be prompted which VS to collect dump about, select the VS instance that hanged. VSFT collects a dump file regarding the hang, called MiniDump.zip, and attaches to your bug report. When "Other" is the bug type: When the problem step recorder starts, perform the actions that show the issue you want to report and then choose the "Stop” button. You can pause the recording, and resume later, or for a specific step, you can add additional comments. Once you’re done, ReproSteps.zip is added to your bug report. Pre-attached files It is essential for Microsoft to know what version of the the product are you currently using and what is the current configuration of your system. Note – The total size of all attachments in a bug report cannot exceed 2 GB, and every uncompressed attachment must be smaller than 512 MB. We recommend that you assemble all of your attachments, compress them together into a .zip file, and then attach the .zip file. Taking a screenshot Associate a screen shot by clicking the Take screenshot button, choose either the entire desktop, the specific monitor (useful if you are working in a multi monitor configuration) or the specific window in question. And finally … click Submit If you need further help, more details can be found here. You can view your feedback online by using the following URL “">https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/SearchResults.aspx?SearchQuery=<feedbackId>” Happy bug logging

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• How to black out second monitor when playing a full screen game?

  - by Gary

  I've got two monitors. When I play a full screen game in my primary monitor, the second monitor still shows the Windows desktop. How can I black out the second monitor so that it doesn't show anything at all? My graphics card is from ATI. I'm running Windows 7 in Boot Camp on an iMac. I don't know if this makes a difference, however, as any solution to my question will do, really. For instance, is there a tiny app that I could run to disable the second monitor for a while? I'd rather not have to open Windows display settings every time I run a game and disable the monitor that way, though.

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• Wii game bought in US, will it work on a PAL console in Europe?

  - by Stijn Sanders

  I can't seem to find a European online outlet that offers this Wii game I'm looking for. If I would buy it from a web-shop in the US, could I end up with a game that doesn't work well with my console? I'm worried because all games I have for the Wii so far have a prominent mention of "PAL" on the cover. I didn't notice "NTSC" on the photo's of the cover online, but I'm worried none the less. (And thought I'd ask it here first...) Also, does anyone happen to know if Belgian customs would add tax to shipments like this coming in from the US?

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• How can I run a game server on a computer behind a NAT, if I have another computer not behind a NAT?

  - by Macha

  My home connection is part of a large NAT, outside my control. Inside my home, my router has a NAT, under my control. I control a public facing Linux VPS with one IP address, outside my home network. Ideally, what I'd like to do is set something up so that I connect my home computer to my VPS, and after that port X on my VPS leads to port Y on my home computer, for the purposes of running a game server of a game that does not run under Linux. Is this possible?

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• Does a Radeon 2100 support the Assassin Creed game? [closed]

  - by karanvir

  does ATI RADON 2100,support assissin creed game and how to update shadermodel to 3.0 ver and does my graphic card support it.reply soon waiting for ur reply

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• I missed allowing ".NET Runtime Optimization Service" while installing a game — could there be any problems?

  - by MDLss

  I'm using ESET Smart Security 4 on Windows 7. I selected Interactive Mode so it asks me when something needs to connect to my PC. So when I was installing a game named League of Legends, I was away from my computer. When I came back, I saw that the download was finished but ESET was asking whether to allow .NET Runtime Optimization Service to connect my computer using port 80 TCP. So I selected Allow but It was too late because the download was already finished. I can play the game, but could it be bugged or broken or something?

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• Looking for design/architecture suggestions for a simple HTML game.

  - by z-boss

  Imagine that HTML page is a game surface (see picture). User can have n number of boards (blue divs) on his page. Each board can be moved, re-sized, relabeled, created new and removed. Inside each board there are m number of figures (purple divs). Each of these user can move inside the board or to another board, re-size, change color and label, delete, add new. The goal of the game is not important, but let's say it is to rearrange figures in a certain way so that they disappear. But the goal of the programmer is to save the whole game surface in the database for every user of the site, and to load it later when he returns. So, how do I go about data exchange between client and the database? I'll give my idea in one of the answers.

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• GameplayScreen does not contain a definition for GraphicsDevice

  - by Dave Voyles

  Long story short: I'm trying to intergrate my game with Microsoft's Game State Management. In doing so I've run into some errors, and the latest one is in the title. I'm not able to display my HUD for the reasons listed above. Previously, I had much of my code in my Game.cs class, but the GSM has a bit of it in Game1, and most of what you have drawn for the main screen in your GameplayScreen class, and that is what is causing confusion on my part. I've created an instance of the GameplayScreen class to be used in the HUD class (as you can see below). Before integrating with the GSM however, I created an instance of my Game class, and all worked fine. It seems that I need to define my graphics device somewhere, but I am not sure of where exactly. I've left some code below to help you understand. public class GameStateManagementGame : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game { #region Fields GraphicsDeviceManager graphics; ScreenManager screenManager; // Creates a new intance, which is used in the HUD class public static Game Instance; // By preloading any assets used by UI rendering, we avoid framerate glitches // when they suddenly need to be loaded in the middle of a menu transition. static readonly string[] preloadAssets = { "gradient", }; #endregion #region Initialization /// <summary> /// The main game constructor. /// </summary> public GameStateManagementGame() { Content.RootDirectory = "Content"; graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); graphics.PreferredBackBufferWidth = 1280; graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight = 720; graphics.IsFullScreen = false; graphics.ApplyChanges(); // Create the screen manager component. screenManager = new ScreenManager(this); Components.Add(screenManager); // Activate the first screens. screenManager.AddScreen(new BackgroundScreen(), null); //screenManager.AddScreen(new MainMenuScreen(), null); screenManager.AddScreen(new PressStartScreen(), null); } namespace Pong { public class HUD { public void Update(GameTime gameTime) { // Used in the Draw method titleSafeRectangle = new Rectangle (GameplayScreen.Instance.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.TitleSafeArea.X, GameplayScreen.Instance.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.TitleSafeArea.Y, GameplayScreen.Instance.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.TitleSafeArea.Width, GameplayScreen.Instance.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.TitleSafeArea.Height); } } } class GameplayScreen : GameScreen { #region Fields ContentManager content; public static GameStates gamestate; private GraphicsDeviceManager graphics; public int screenWidth; public int screenHeight; private Texture2D backgroundTexture; private SpriteBatch spriteBatch; private Menu menu; private SpriteFont arial; private HUD hud; Animation player; // Creates a new intance, which is used in the HUD class public static GameplayScreen Instance; public GameplayScreen() { TransitionOnTime = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1.5); TransitionOffTime = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0.5); } protected void Initialize() { lastScored = false; menu = new Menu(); resetTimer = 0; resetTimerInUse = true; ball = new Ball(content, new Vector2(screenWidth, screenHeight)); SetUpMulti(); input = new Input(); hud = new HUD(); // Places the powerup animation inside of the surrounding box // Needs to be cleaned up, instead of using hard pixel values player = new Animation(content.Load<Texture2D>(@"gfx/powerupSpriteSheet"), new Vector2(103, 44), 64, 64, 4, 5); // Used by for the Powerups random = new Random(); vec = new Vector2(100, 50); vec2 = new Vector2(100, 100); promptVec = new Vector2(50, 25); timer = 10000.0f; // Starting value for the cooldown for the powerup timer timerVector = new Vector2(10, 10); //JEP - one time creation of powerup objects playerOnePowerup = new Powerup(); playerOnePowerup.Activated += PowerupActivated; playerOnePowerup.Deactivated += PowerupDeactivated; playerTwoPowerup = new Powerup(); playerTwoPowerup.Activated += PowerupActivated; playerTwoPowerup.Deactivated += PowerupDeactivated; //JEP - moved from events since these only need set once activatedVec = new Vector2(100, 125); deactivatedVec = new Vector2(100, 150); powerupReady = false; }

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• Which containers / graphics components to use in a simple Java Swing game?

  - by rize

  I'm creating a simple labyrinth game with Java + Swing. The game draws a randomized labyrinth on the screen, places a figure in the middle, and the player is then supposed to find the way out by moving the figure with arrow-keys. As for now, I'm using a plain background and drawing the walls of the labyrinth with Graphics.drawLine(). I have a custom picture of the figure in a .gif file, which I load as a BufferedImage object. However, I want the player to see only part of the labyrinth at a time, and the screen should follow the figure in the game, as the player moves around. I'm planning to do this by creating an Image object of the whole labyrinth when it is created, and then "cutting" a square around the current position of the figure and displaying this with Graphics.drawImage(). I'm new with Swing though, and I can't figure out how to draw the figure at different positions "above" the labyrinth without redrawing the whole thing. Which container/component should I use for the labyrinth and then for the figure to achieve this?

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• Easiest, most fun way to program 2D games? Flash? XNA? Some other engine?

  - by Maxi

  Hi, this is a post detailing my search for the most enjoyable way for a hobbyist game programmer to sweeten his free time with making a game. My requirements: I looked at Flash first, I made a couple of small games but I'm doubtful of the performance. I would like to make a fairly large strategy game, with several hundred units fighting simultaneously, explosions and animations included. Also zoomable maps. I saw that Adobe has a new 3D API for Flash, but I don't know if that improves 2D performance aswell, I couldn't find anything related to that question on their MAX10 sessions. Would you say that Flash is a good technology for making large 2D games easily? I really like Actionscript, and I love how easy everything is in Flash. There are several engines available which make it even easier. I just do this for fun, and it would be even better if there were proper animation/particle editors available and if the engine I were to use, would be available for multiple platforms. (so more people can play my game once finished). I'd like to have it available on many mobile platforms aswell. (because I love touch input for some reason) I do know the XNA framework pretty well, but there are no good engines available for it, and it will only run on Windows, which is a huge turn off. Even bigger is, that you need to install the XNA redistributable each time you want to give the game to someone. If I use XNA, I would have to make all the tools myself, and I'd probably have to make them with WPF. (I'd love to make tools with Adobe AIR, but unfortunately the API's for image manipulation etc. are far worse in Flash, than they are in XNA/WPF.) Now, I'm aware that I could make my own engine that supports each of those platforms, but quite frankly, that would be too much work plowing through APIs. After all, I want to make a game, not an engine. So the question becomes: Is there maybe a cross platform (free or free to develop?) engine available that I could use for 2D development? I prefer: C#, Actionscript. I don't mind using c++ if the toolset is above average, but I highly doubt that there is something out there like that. Please prove me wrong :) So summary: I'd like to use Flash, but I don't know if it scales well enough. I'm not a scripter, I want some real APIs that I can work with inside a proper IDE. Just for information, I looked at several alternatives, I'm actually looking for a long time already. You'd help me a lot to make a decision finally. Feature-wise the Flatredball engine would be ideal. But I tried their tools, and quite frankly, they are horrible. Absolutely unusable, I'd need to make my own for sure. I didn't look at their API, but if their tools are so bad, I'm not inclined to look further. Unity3D. This one is quite nice, but I really don't need 3D, and it is quite ...a lot of work to learn. I also don't like that it is so expensive to use for different platforms and that I can only code for it through scripting. You have to buy each platform separately. The editor usability is average, the product overall is good enough for most purposes, but learning it myself would be overkill. Shiva 3D. It looks good enough, but again: I don't really need 3D. The editor usability is a little worse than Unity3D in my opinion and it wasn't clear to me how to start programming. I think it requires C++ for coding, so that's a negative too. I want to have fun, and c# is fun ;) SDL. Quite frankly, I'd still need to port to all those different SDL implementations. And I don't like OpenGL style programming, it's just plain ugly. And it needs c++, I know that there might be some wrappers available, but I don't like to use wrappers, because... Irrlicht. A lot of features, but support seems to be low and it is aimed at enthusiasts. C# bindings get dropped repeatedly. I'm not an engine enthusiast, I just want to make a game. I don't see this happening with Irrlicht. Ogre3D. Way too much work, it's just a graphics engine. Also no multiple platform support and c++. Torque2D. Costs something to use, and I didn't hear a lot of good things about support and documentation. Also costs extra for each platform.

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• How many BasicEffects do you have in a Game? What is the best way to render multiple objects/shapes at once?

  - by Deukalion

  I'm trying to understand 3D rendering and it seems that everytime you render a new object (A 3D Cube or something) you need to have a new BasicEffect for each Box you render unless you want the exact same texture? ...so if I have over a hundred boxes with each different textures, I need at least as many BasicEffects? Will that not be "too much" for the CPU/GPU in the end or result in lagging? Is there any good way to render multiple objects (cubes or other shapes) at the same time? I've tried changing the BasicEffect.Texture with each cube drawn, but it resulting in changing the first Cube's texture too. Any suggestions would be really appreciated, I'm really new to 3D in XNA so I'm trying to wrap my head around the best methods for example render a Map with objects (of shapes).

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• How should I structure my iPhone OpenGL ES 1.1 game?

  - by Ryan

  I am building an iPhone OpenGL ES 1.1 game. I am using the OpenGL ES template provided by xcode. I am only using the ES1Renderer. I've coded some basic touch actions the user can take, and I've begun to think about the overall structure of the code. All I'm really doing is using C in the ES1Renderer.m for my entire game state. I have an array of bullet structs, an array on enemy structs, etc.. Besides using this structure, where my entire game state is in ES1Renderer.m as C arrays and structs, what other ways are there to structure the code? Should I be using C++ or Objective-C classes to represent the enemies so they are more modular? The main reason I ask this is because I don't normally code in C, C++ and Objective-C..so I am a little fuzzy on coming up with a good architecture here.

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• Is Android (read typical devices) fast enough for a game that requires plotting pixel by pixel rather than blitting

  - by mP

  i have an idea for an Android game which is a little different from the typical game that usually moves sprites(bitmaps) around the screen. Id want to plot lots of little pixels to create my visuals. PROS no bitmaps required pixel plotting of stuff like "fire" can react to wind. no need to scale bitmaps, works w/ any screen res (lets pretend device can handle more drawing because its got a bigger screen). CONS slower to plot pixels than blit bitmaps need lot of animation frames. WISHES id like to update my game in real time, more is better 30fps is good but not essential, 15fps is enough. PERFORMANCE Q... Is the typical Android device fast enough to plot say half a screenful of pixels w/ a default background ? if full screen is not practical what window size should be able to handle such refreshes

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• Is this too much to ask for a game programming and developing enthusiast? Am I doing this wrong?

  - by I_Question_Things_Deeply

  I have been a computer-fanatic for almost a decade now. I've always loved and wondered how computers work, even from the purest, lowest hardware level to the very smallest pixel on the screen, and all the software around that. That seems to be my problem though ... as I try to write code (I'm pretty fluent at C++) I always sit there enormous amounts of time in front of a text-editor wondering how every line, statement, datum, function, etc. will correspond to every Assembly and machine instruction performed to do absolutely everything necessary for the kernel to allocate memory to run my compiled program, and all of the other hardware being used as well. For example ... I would write cout << "Before memory changed" << endl; and run the debugger to get the Assembly for this, and then try and reverse disassemble the Assembly to machine code based on my ISA, and then research every .dll, library file, linked library, linking process, linker source code of the program, the make file, the kernel I'm using's steps of processing this compilation, the hardware's part aside from the processor (e.g. video card, sound card, chipset, cache latency, byte-sized registers, calling convention use, DDR3 RAM and disk drive, filesystem functioning and so many other things). Am I going about programming wrong? I mean I feel I should know everything that goes on underneath English syntax on a computer program. But the problem is that the more I research every little thing the less I actually accomplish at all. I can never finish anything because of this mentality, yet I feel compelled to know everything... what should I do?

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• XNA 4 Deferred Rendering deforms the model

  - by Tomáš Bezouška

  I have a problem when rendering a model of my World - when rendered using BasicEffect, it looks just peachy. Problem is when I render it using deferred rendering. See for yourselves: what it looks like: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/690/survival.png/ what it should look like: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/521/survival2.png/ (Please ignora the cars, they shouldn't be there. Nothing changes when they are removed) Im using Deferred renderer from www.catalinzima.com/tutorials/deferred-rendering-in-xna/introduction-2/ except very simplified, without the custom content processor. Here's the code for the GBuffer shader: float4x4 World; float4x4 View; float4x4 Projection; float specularIntensity = 0.001f; float specularPower = 3; texture Texture; sampler diffuseSampler = sampler_state { Texture = (Texture); MAGFILTER = LINEAR; MINFILTER = LINEAR; MIPFILTER = LINEAR; AddressU = Wrap; AddressV = Wrap; }; struct VertexShaderInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float3 Normal : NORMAL0; float2 TexCoord : TEXCOORD0; }; struct VertexShaderOutput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 TexCoord : TEXCOORD0; float3 Normal : TEXCOORD1; float2 Depth : TEXCOORD2; }; VertexShaderOutput VertexShaderFunction(VertexShaderInput input) { VertexShaderOutput output; float4 worldPosition = mul(input.Position, World); float4 viewPosition = mul(worldPosition, View); output.Position = mul(viewPosition, Projection); output.TexCoord = input.TexCoord; //pass the texture coordinates further output.Normal = mul(input.Normal,World); //get normal into world space output.Depth.x = output.Position.z; output.Depth.y = output.Position.w; return output; } struct PixelShaderOutput { half4 Color : COLOR0; half4 Normal : COLOR1; half4 Depth : COLOR2; }; PixelShaderOutput PixelShaderFunction(VertexShaderOutput input) { PixelShaderOutput output; output.Color = tex2D(diffuseSampler, input.TexCoord); //output Color output.Color.a = specularIntensity; //output SpecularIntensity output.Normal.rgb = 0.5f * (normalize(input.Normal) + 1.0f); //transform normal domain output.Normal.a = specularPower; //output SpecularPower output.Depth = input.Depth.x / input.Depth.y; //output Depth return output; } technique Technique1 { pass Pass1 { VertexShader = compile vs_2_0 VertexShaderFunction(); PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 PixelShaderFunction(); } } And here are the rendering parts in XNA: public void RednerModel(Model model, Matrix world) { Matrix[] boneTransforms = new Matrix[model.Bones.Count]; model.CopyAbsoluteBoneTransformsTo(boneTransforms); Game.GraphicsDevice.DepthStencilState = DepthStencilState.Default; Game.GraphicsDevice.BlendState = BlendState.Opaque; Game.GraphicsDevice.RasterizerState = RasterizerState.CullCounterClockwise; foreach (ModelMesh mesh in model.Meshes) { foreach (ModelMeshPart meshPart in mesh.MeshParts) { GBufferEffect.Parameters["View"].SetValue(Camera.Instance.ViewMatrix); GBufferEffect.Parameters["Projection"].SetValue(Camera.Instance.ProjectionMatrix); GBufferEffect.Parameters["World"].SetValue(boneTransforms[mesh.ParentBone.Index] * world); GBufferEffect.Parameters["Texture"].SetValue(meshPart.Effect.Parameters["Texture"].GetValueTexture2D()); GBufferEffect.Techniques[0].Passes[0].Apply(); RenderMeshpart(mesh, meshPart); } } } private void RenderMeshpart(ModelMesh mesh, ModelMeshPart part) { Game.GraphicsDevice.SetVertexBuffer(part.VertexBuffer); Game.GraphicsDevice.Indices = part.IndexBuffer; Game.GraphicsDevice.DrawIndexedPrimitives(PrimitiveType.TriangleList, 0, 0, part.NumVertices, part.StartIndex, part.PrimitiveCount); } I import the model using the built in content processor for FBX. The FBX is created in 3DS Max. I don't know the exact details of that export, but if you think it might be relevant, I will get them from my collegue who does them. What confuses me though is why the BasicEffect approach works... seems the FBX shouldnt be a problem. Any thoughts? They will be greatly appreciated :)

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• Node.js Lockstep Multiplayer Architecture

  - by Wakaka

  Background I'm using the lockstep model for a multiplayer Node.js/Socket.IO game in a client-server architecture. User input (mouse or keypress) is parsed into commands like 'attack' and 'move' on the client, which are sent to the server and scheduled to be executed on a certain tick. This is in contrast to sending state data to clients, which I don't wish to use due to bandwidth issues. Each tick, the server will send the list of commands on that tick (possibly empty) to each client. The server and all clients will then process the commands and simulate that tick in exactly the same way. With Node.js this is actually quite simple due to possibility of code sharing between server and client. I'll just put the deterministic simulator in the /shared folder which can be run by both server and client. The server simulation is required so that there is an authoritative version of the simulation which clients cannot alter. Problem Now, the game has many entity classes, like Unit, Item, Tree etc. Entities are created in the simulator. However, for each class, it has some methods that are shared and some that are client-specific. For instance, the Unit class has addHp method which is shared. It also has methods like getSprite (gets the image of the entity), isVisible (checks if unit can be seen by the client), onDeathInClient (does a bunch of stuff when it dies only on the client like adding announcements) and isMyUnit (quick function to check if the client owns the unit). Up till now, I have been piling all the client functions into the shared Unit class, and adding a this.game.isServer() check when necessary. For instance, when the unit dies, it will call if (!this.game.isServer()) { this.onDeathInClient(); }. This approach has worked pretty fine so far, in terms of functionality. But as the codebase grew bigger, this style of coding seems a little strange. Firstly, the client code is clearly not shared, and yet is placed under the /shared folder. Secondly, client-specific variables for each entity are also instantiated on the server entity (like unit.sprite) and can run into problems when the server cannot instantiate the variable (it doesn't have Image class like on browsers). So my question is, is there a better way to organize the client code, or is this a common way of doing things for lockstep multiplayer games? I can think of a possible workaround, but it does have its own problems. Possible workaround (with problems) I could use Javascript mixins that are only added when in a browser. Thus, in the /shared/unit.js file in the /shared folder, I would have this code at the end: if (typeof exports !== 'undefined') module.exports = Unit; else mixin(Unit, LocalUnit); Then I would have /client/localunit.js store an object LocalUnit of client-side methods for Unit. Now, I already have a publish-subscribe system in place for events in the simulator. To remove the this.game.isServer() checks, I could publish entity-specific events whenever I want the client to do something. For instance, I would do this.publish('Death') in /shared/unit.js and do this.subscribe('Death', this.onDeathInClient) in /client/localunit.js. But this would make the simulator's event listeners list on the server and the client different. Now if I want to clear all subscribed events only from the shared simulator, I can't. Of course, it is possible to create two event subscription systems - one client-specific and one shared - but now the publish() method would have to do if (!this.game.isServer()) { this.publishOnClient(event); }. All in all, the workaround off the top of my head seems pretty complicated for something as simple as separating the client and shared code. Thus, I wonder if there is an established and simpler method for better code organization, hopefully specific to Node.js games.

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• Grid pathfinding with a lot of entities

  - by Vee

  I'd like to explain this problem with a screenshot from a released game, DROD: Gunthro's Epic Blunder, by Caravel Games. The game is turn-based and tile-based. I'm trying to create something very similar (a clone of the game), and I've got most of the fundamentals done, but I'm having trouble implementing pathfinding. Look at the screenshot. The guys in yellow are friendly, and want to kill the roaches. Every turn, every guy in yellow pathfinds to the closest roach, and every roach pathfinds to the closest guy in yellow. By closest I mean the target with the shortest path, not a simple distance calculation. All of this without any kind of slowdown when loading the level or when passing turns. And all of the entities change position every turn. Also (not shown in screenshot), there can be doors that open and close and change the level's layout. Impressive. I've tried implementing pathfinding in my clone. First attempt was making every roach find a path to a yellow guy every turn, using a breadth-first search algorithm. Obviously incredibly slow with more than a single roach, and would get exponentially slower with more than a single yellow guy. Second attempt was mas making every yellow guy generate a pathmap (still breadth-first search) every time he moved. Worked perfectly with multiple roaches and a single yellow guy, but adding more yellow guys made the game slow and unplayable. Last attempt was implementing JPS (jump point search). Every entity would individually calculate a path to its target. Fast, but with a limited number of entities. Having less than half the entities in the screenshot would make the game slow. And also, I had to get the "closest" enemy by calculating distance, not shortest path. I've asked on the DROD forums how they did it, and a user replied that it was breadth-first search. The game is open source, and I took a look at the source code, but it's C++ (I'm using C#) and I found it confusing. I don't know how to do it. Every approach I tried isn't good enough. And I believe that DROD generates global pathmaps, somehow, but I can't understand how every entity find the best individual path to other entities that move every turn. What's the trick? This is a reply I just got on the DROD forums: Without having looked at the code I'd wager it's two (or so) pathmaps for the whole room: One to the nearest enemy, and one to the nearest friendly for every tile. There's no need to make a separate pathmap for every entity when the overall goal is "move towards nearest enemy/friendly"... just mark every tile with the number of moves it takes to the nearest target and have the entity chose the move that takes it to the tile with the lowest number. To be honest, I don't understand it that well.

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• Problem with boundary collision

  - by James Century

  The problem: When the player hits the left boundary he stops (this is exactly what I want), when he hits the right boundary. He continues until his rectangle's left boundary meets with the right boundary. Outcome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuJfIWZ_LL0&feature=youtu.be My Code public class Player extends GameObject{ BufferedImageLoader loader; Texture tex = Game.getInstance(); BufferedImage image; Animation playerWalkLeft; private HealthBarManager healthBar; private String username; private int width; private ManaBarManager manaBar; public Player(float x, float y, ObjectID ID) { super(x, y, ID, null); loader = new BufferedImageLoader(); playerWalkLeft = new Animation(5,tex.player[10],tex.player[11],tex.player[12],tex.player[13],tex.player[14],tex.player[15],tex.player[17],tex.player[18]); } public void tick(LinkedList<GameObject> object) { setX(getX()+velX); setY(getY()+velY); playerWalkLeft.runAnimation(); } public void render(Graphics g) { g.setColor(Color.BLACK); FontMetrics fm = g.getFontMetrics(g.getFont()); if(username != null) width = fm.stringWidth(username); if(username != null){ g.drawString(username,(int) x-width/2+15,(int) y); } if(velX != 0){ playerWalkLeft.drawAnimation(g, (int)x, (int)y); }else{ g.drawImage(tex.player[16], (int)x, (int)y, null); } g.setColor(Color.PINK); g.drawRect((int)x,(int)y,33,48); g.drawRect(0,0,(int)Game.getWalkableBounds().getWidth(), (int)Game.getWalkableBounds().getHeight()); } @SuppressWarnings("unused") private Image getCurrentImage() { return image; } public float getX() { return x; } public float getY() { return y; } public void setX(float x) { Rectangle gameBoundry = Game.getWalkableBounds(); if(x >= gameBoundry.getMinX() && x <= gameBoundry.getMaxX()){ this.x = x; } } public void setY(float y) { //IGNORE THE SetY please. this.y = y; } public float getVelX() { return velX; } public void setHealthBar(HealthBarManager healthBar){ this.healthBar = healthBar; } public HealthBarManager getHealthBar(){ return healthBar; } public float getVelY() { return velY; } public void setVelX(float velX) { this.velX = velX; } public void setVelY(float velY) { this.velY = velY; } public ObjectID getID() { return ID; } public void setUsername(String playerName) { this.username = playerName; } public String getUsername(){ return this.username; } public void setManaBar(ManaBarManager manaBar) { this.manaBar = manaBar; } public ManaBarManager getManaBar(){ return manaBar; } public int getLevel(){ return 1; } public boolean isPlayerInsideBoundry(float x, float y){ Rectangle boundry = Game.getWalkableBounds(); if(boundry.contains(x,y)){ return true; } return false; } } What I've tried: - Using a method that checks if the game boundary contains player boundary rectangle. This gave me the same result as what the check statement in my setX did.

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• Switching from Onboard intel to Nvidia Dedicated GPU

  - by Anarkie

  How can I switch from Intel onboard grpahics to Nvidia Dedicated GPU? When I go to windows screen resolution I see intel. I cant change it. I go to Device Manager, I see both Adapters are there and Nvidia is known.I disabled intel, I didnt see any option to set one as primary so I disabled intel, black screen!Reboot and re-enable intel. I right click on the desktop, choose "Nvidia Control Panel" and on 3D options I chose the desired game I want to play, High performance Nvidia, but it didnt switch when I started the game. Then I made preferred GPU in the global settings High performance Nvidia for everything it still didnt change.I understand to save the battery etc. there is a switch option between these two but I dont see this switch when it is necessary, I cant also switch manually?Is there a manual switch FN key?I looked but couldnt find. Why I want to do this? 1) Better game peformance. 2) I want to play an old game from 2002(Diablo 2 LOD), when I start the game there are black bars on the sides, so screen becomes just smaller which I dislike!I heard this is intel's specification to center the display.But instead I would like to scale or expand it to fit widescreen(fullscreen).Which should be possible with Nvidia. My Notebook Specs: Fujitsu Lifebook AH531, Win7 , 64 bit, i5, intel HD graphics onboard, Nvidia GT 525. I didnt install Nvidia later, it was always installed and ready from the moment I turned on the computer first time. How I determined that the cards werent switched when I am playing the game: with the windows key I exited from the game, then looked at screen resolutions menu, still saw intel, also the game was still with black bars.I know intel GPU should enough for Diablo 2 but I am interested in this answer for further games, I dont always play Diablo, what if I install an up to date game for example?Then Intel will not be sufficient.I would like to learn the switch option.

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• The new direction of the gaming industry

  - by raccoon_tim

  Just recently I read a great blog post by David Darling, the founder of Codemasters: http://www.develop-online.net/blog/347/Jurassic-consoles-could-become-extinct. In the blog post he talks about how traditional retail games are experiencing a downfall thanks to the increasing popularity of digital distribution. I personally think of retail games as being relics of the past. It does not really make much sense to still keep distributing boxed games when the same game can be elegantly downloaded and updated over the air through a digital distribution channel. The world is not all rainbows, however. One big issue with mixing digital distribution with boxed retail games is that resellers will not condone you selling your game for 10€ digitally while their selling the same game for 70€. The only way to get around this issue is to move to full digital distribution. This has the added benefit of minimizing piracy as the game can be tightly bound to the service you downloaded the game from. Many players are, however, complaining about not being able to play the games offline. Having games tightly bound to the internet is a problem when games are bought from a retailer as we tend to expect that once we have the product we can use it anywhere because we physically own it. The truth is that we don’t actually own the product. Instead, the typical EULA actually states that we only have a license to use the product. We’re not, for instance, allowed to disassemble the product, which the owner is indeed permitted to do. Digital distribution allows us to provide games as services, instead of selling them as standalone products. This means that for a service to work you have to be connected to the internet but you still have the same rights to use the product. It’s really straightforward; if you downloaded a client from the internet you are expected to have an internet connection so you’re able to connect to the server. A game distributed digitally that is built using a client-server architecture has the added benefit of allowing you to play anywhere as long as you have the client installed and you are able to log in with your user information. Your save games can be backed up and your game can continue anywhere. Another development we’re seeing in the gaming industry is the increasing popularity of free-to-play games. These are games that let you play for free but allow you to boost your gaming experience with real world money. The nature of these games is that players are constantly rewarded with new content and the game can evolve according to their way of playing and their wishes can be incorporated into the product. Free-to-play games can quickly gain a large player basis and monetization is done by providing players valuable things to buy making their gaming experience more fun. I am personally very excited about free-to-play games as it’s possible to start building the game together with your players and there is no need to work on the game for 5 years from start to finish and only then see if it’s actually something the players like. This is a typical problem with big movie-like retail games and recent news about Radical Entertainment practically closing its doors paints a clear picture of what can happen when the risk does not pay off: http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/25874/Prototype-Developer-Radical-Entertainment-Closes/.

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• XNA running slow when making a texture

  - by Anthony

  I'm using XNA to test an image analysis algorithm for a robot. I made a simple 3D world that has a grass, a robot, and white lines (that are represent the course). The image analysis algorithm is a modification of the Hough line detection algorithm. I have the game render 2 camera views to a render target in memory. One camera is a top down view of the robot going around the course, and the second camera is the view from the robot's perspective as it moves along. I take the rendertarget of the robot camera and convert it to a Color[,] so that I can do image analysis on it. private Color[,] TextureTo2DArray(Texture2D texture, Color[] colors1D, Color[,] colors2D) { texture.GetData(colors1D); for (int x = 0; x < texture.Width; x++) { for (int y = 0; y < texture.Height; y++) { colors2D[x, y] = colors1D[x + (y * texture.Width)]; } } return colors2D; } I want to overlay the results of the image analysis on the robot camera view. The first part of the image analysis is finding the white pixels. When I find the white pixels I create a bool[,] array showing which pixels were white and which were black. Then I want to convert it back into a texture so that I can overlay on the robot view. When I try to create the new texture showing which ones pixels were white, then the game goes super slow (around 10 hz). Can you give me some pointers as to what to do to make the game go faster. If I comment out this algorithm, then it goes back up to 60 hz. private Texture2D GenerateTexturesFromBoolArray(bool[,] boolArray,Color[] colorMap, Texture2D textureToModify) { for(int i =0;i < screenWidth;i++) { for(int j =0;j<screenHeight;j++) { if (boolArray[i, j] == true) { colorMap[i+(j*screenWidth)] = Color.Red; } else { colorMap[i + (j * screenWidth)] = Color.Transparent; } } } textureToModify.SetData<Color>(colorMap); return textureToModify; } Each Time I run draw, I must set the texture to null, so that I can modify it. public override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { Vector2 topRightVector = ((SimulationMain)Game).spriteRectangleManager.topRightVector; Vector2 scaleFactor = ((SimulationMain)Game).config.scaleFactorScreenSizeToWindow; this.spriteBatch.Begin(); // Start the 2D drawing this.spriteBatch.Draw(this.textureFindWhite, topRightVector, null, Color.White, 0, Vector2.Zero, scaleFactor, SpriteEffects.None, 0); this.spriteBatch.End(); // Stop drawing. GraphicsDevice.Textures[0] = null; } Thanks for the help, Anthony G.

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