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• Why is my CPU being used while doing nothing?

  - by Jop

  I have installed Ubuntu GNOME in BIOS mode on my MacBook (BIOS mode so that the proprietary NVIDIA drivers work. I need them for gaming.). For some reason, a lot of CPU is being used while not really doing anything. It swings between 20-30% on both cores, usually. But when I look at the list of processes and sort by CPU usage, I do not see anything special. No processes intensively doing anything. How can I fix this? EDIT: Output of top command. jop@jop-MacBook:~$ top top - 17:08:02 up 41 min, 2 users, load average: 0,51, 0,69, 0,95 Tasks: 202 total, 2 running, 200 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie %Cpu(s): 11,9 us, 5,8 sy, 0,0 ni, 80,3 id, 0,5 wa, 0,0 hi, 1,5 si, 0,0 st KiB Mem: 7908316 total, 2919940 used, 4988376 free, 153248 buffers KiB Swap: 3906244 total, 0 used, 3906244 free, 1326544 cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 3785 root 20 0 195m 82m 26m S 22,9 1,1 2:43.77 Xorg 4429 jop 20 0 1543m 150m 60m S 7,3 1,9 1:26.26 compiz 4198 jop 20 0 633m 21m 11m S 1,7 0,3 0:04.96 unity-panel-ser 7425 jop 20 0 564m 18m 12m S 1,7 0,2 0:00.84 gnome-terminal 7019 jop 20 0 806m 89m 46m S 1,0 1,2 0:10.01 chrome 7323 jop 20 0 966m 93m 23m S 1,0 1,2 0:06.85 chrome 6742 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,7 0,0 0:00.43 kworker/0:3 3 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,3 0,0 0:06.01 ksoftirqd/0 7008 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,3 0,0 0:00.27 kworker/1:3 7302 jop 20 0 972m 96m 28m S 0,3 1,2 0:06.32 chrome 7310 jop 20 0 382m 63m 39m S 0,3 0,8 0:00.34 chrome 7498 jop 20 0 24840 1600 1120 R 0,3 0,0 0:00.22 top 1 root 20 0 27176 2944 1412 S 0,0 0,0 0:01.58 init 2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 kthreadd 5 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 kworker/0:0H 6 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:00.00 kworker/u4:0 7 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0,0 0,0 0:02.04 migration/0 Even when xorg isn't so busy like when I copied, CPU usage is higher then what the processes use.

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• Need help with xorg.conf for dual Radeon HD6450 video cards with 4 monitors

  - by Eriks Goodwin-Pfister

  I am running 64-bit Ubuntu 13.10 with Unity and have dual (2) Radeon HD6450 video cards and 4 Hanns-G HL273 monitors. Each Radeon card is driving one monitor via DVI and the other via VGA. I am running the proprietary video drivers from AMD's web site: "amd-catalyst-13.11-beta V9.4-linux-x86.x86_64.run" I tried to use "amd-catalyst-13.12-linux-x86.x86_64.run" but could not get that newer version to install. What I need help with is how to "correct" my xorg.conf file and any other needed instructions to get all four of my monitors to work as a continuous desktop that allows me to drag things from one monitor to the next, etc. When I tried to use the default open source drivers that came in Ubuntu 13.10, only three of the monitors would work. Now that I am running the proprietary ones, all four monitors come on and I can move my mouse from one end to the other--but only the right-most monitor displays my desktop and allows me to "do anything". Any time I move my mouse to any of the other three monitors (which display all-white), it turns into an "X" and does not do anything else but move. Enabling xinerama makes all four displays go all-black after login. I do have amdcccle installed, but it does not seem to have the ability to handle my particular configuration. My Current xorg.conf: Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Basic Layout" Screen 0 "Screen1" 5760 0 Screen 1 "Screen0" 0 0 Screen 2 "Screen2" 3840 0 Screen 3 "Screen3" 1920 0 EndSection Section "Module" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "0-DFP2" Option "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver" Option "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor" Option "DPMS" "true" Option "PreferredMode" "1920x1080" Option "TargetRefresh" "60" Option "Position" "0 0" Option "Rotate" "normal" Option "Disable" "false" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "0-CRT1" Option "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver" Option "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor" Option "DPMS" "true" Option "PreferredMode" "1920x1080" Option "TargetRefresh" "60" Option "Position" "0 0" Option "Rotate" "normal" Option "Disable" "false" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "1-DFP2" Option "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver" Option "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor" Option "DPMS" "true" Option "PreferredMode" "1920x1080" Option "TargetRefresh" "60" Option "Position" "0 0" Option "Rotate" "normal" Option "Disable" "false" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "1-CRT1" Option "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver" Option "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor" Option "DPMS" "true" Option "PreferredMode" "1920x1080" Option "TargetRefresh" "60" Option "Position" "0 0" Option "Rotate" "normal" Option "Disable" "false" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device0" Driver "fglrx" Option "Monitor-CRT1" "1-CRT1" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device1" Driver "fglrx" Option "Monitor-DFP2" "0-DFP2" BusID "PCI:4:0:0" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device2" Driver "fglrx" Option "Monitor-DFP2" "1-DFP2" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" Screen 1 EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device3" Driver "fglrx" Option "Monitor-CRT1" "0-CRT1" BusID "PCI:4:0:0" Screen 1 EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "Device0" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen1" Device "Device1" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen2" Device "Device2" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Viewport 0 0 Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen3" Device "Device3" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Viewport 0 0 Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection

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• Randomly generate directed graph on a grid

  - by Talon876

  I am trying to randomly generate a directed graph for the purpose of making a puzzle game similar to the ice sliding puzzles from Pokemon. This is essentially what I want to be able to randomly generate: http://bulbanews.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Crunching_the_numbers:_Graph_theory. I need to be able to limit the size of the graph in an x and y dimension. In the example given in the link, it would be restricted to an 8x4 grid. The problem I am running into is not randomly generating the graph, but randomly generating a graph, which I can properly map out in a 2d space, since I need something (like a rock) on the opposite side of a node, to make it visually make sense when you stop sliding. The problem with this is that sometimes the rock ends up in the path between two other nodes or possibly on another node itself, which causes the entire graph to become broken. After discussing the problem with a few people I know, we came to a couple of conclusions that may lead to a solution. Including the obstacles in the grid as part of the graph when constructing it. Start out with a fully filled grid and just draw a random path and delete out blocks that will make that path work. The problem then becomes figuring out which ones to delete to avoid introducing an additional, shorter path. We were also thinking a dynamic programming algorithm may be beneficial, though none of us are too skilled with creating dynamic programming algorithms from nothing. Any ideas or references about what this problem is officially called (if it's an official graph problem) would be most helpful. Here are some examples of what I have accomplished so far by just randomly placing blocks and generating the navigation graph from the chosen start/finish. The idea (as described in the previous link) is you start at the green S and want to get to the green F. You do this by moving up/down/left/right and you continue moving in the direction chosen until you hit a wall. In these pictures, grey is a wall, white is the floor, and the purple line is the minimum length from start to finish, and the black lines and grey dots represented possible paths. Here are some bad examples of randomly generated graphs: http://i.stack.imgur.com/9uaM6.png Here are some good examples of randomly generated (or hand tweaked) graphs: i.stack.imgur.com/uUGeL.png (can't post another link, sorry) I've also seemed to notice the more challenging ones when actually playing this as a puzzle are ones which have lots of high degree nodes along the minimum path.

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• Check if an object is facing another based on angles

  - by Isaiah

  I already have something that calculates the bearing angle to get one object to face another. You give it the positions and it returns the angle to get one to face the other. Now I need to figure out how tell if on object is facing toward another object within a specified field and I can't find any information about how to do this. The objects are obj1 and obj2. Their angles are at obj1.angle and obj2.angle. Their vectors are at obj1.pos and obj2.pos. It's in the format [x,y]. The angle to have one face directly at another is found with direction(obj1.pos,obj2.pos). I want to set the function up like this: isfacing(obj1,obj2,area){...} and return true/false depending if it's in the specified field area to the angle to directly see it. I've got a base like this: var isfacing = function (obj1,obj2,area){ var toface = direction(obj1.pos,obj2.pos); if(toface+area >= obj1.angle && ob1.angle >= toface-area){ return true; } return false; } But my problem is that the angles are in 360 degrees, never above 360 and never below 0. How can I account for that in this? If the first object's angle is say at 0 and say I subtract a field area of 20 or so. It'll check if it's less than -20! If I fix the -20 it becomes 340 but x < 340 isn't what I want, I'd have to x 340 in that case. Is there someone out there with more sleep than I that can help a new dev pulling an all-nighter just to get enemies to know if they're attacking in the right direction? I hope I'm making this harder than it seems. I'd just make them always face the main char if the producer didn't want attacks from behind to work while blocking. In which case I'll need the function above anyways. I've tried to give as much info as I can think would help. Also this is in 2d.

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• Implementing a wheeled character controller

  - by Lazlo

  I'm trying to implement Boxycraft's character controller in XNA (with Farseer), as Bryan Dysmas did (minus the jumping part, yet). My current implementation seems to sometimes glitch in between two parallel planes, and fails to climb 45 degree slopes. (YouTube videos in links, plane glitch is subtle). How can I fix it? From the textual description, I seem to be doing it right. Here is my implementation (it seems like a huge wall of text, but it's easy to read. I wish I could simplify and isolate the problem more, but I can't): public Body TorsoBody { get; private set; } public PolygonShape TorsoShape { get; private set; } public Body LegsBody { get; private set; } public Shape LegsShape { get; private set; } public RevoluteJoint Hips { get; private set; } public FixedAngleJoint FixedAngleJoint { get; private set; } public AngleJoint AngleJoint { get; private set; } ... this.TorsoBody = BodyFactory.CreateRectangle(this.World, 1, 1.5f, 1); this.TorsoShape = new PolygonShape(1); this.TorsoShape.SetAsBox(0.5f, 0.75f); this.TorsoBody.CreateFixture(this.TorsoShape); this.TorsoBody.IsStatic = false; this.LegsBody = BodyFactory.CreateCircle(this.World, 0.5f, 1); this.LegsShape = new CircleShape(0.5f, 1); this.LegsBody.CreateFixture(this.LegsShape); this.LegsBody.Position -= 0.75f * Vector2.UnitY; this.LegsBody.IsStatic = false; this.Hips = JointFactory.CreateRevoluteJoint(this.TorsoBody, this.LegsBody, Vector2.Zero); this.Hips.MotorEnabled = true; this.AngleJoint = new AngleJoint(this.TorsoBody, this.LegsBody); this.FixedAngleJoint = new FixedAngleJoint(this.TorsoBody); this.Hips.MaxMotorTorque = float.PositiveInfinity; this.World.AddJoint(this.Hips); this.World.AddJoint(this.AngleJoint); this.World.AddJoint(this.FixedAngleJoint); ... public void Move(float m) // -1, 0, +1 { this.Hips.MotorSpeed = 0.5f * m; }

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• Why does switching users completely hang my system every time?

  - by Stéphane

  I have a fresh install of 11.04 64bit, with 2 administrator accounts and 4 normal accounts. The 4 normal accounts (the kids' accounts) don't have passwords, they can login simply by clicking on their names. When any of the users -- either admin or normal -- tries to switch to another account by clicking in the top-right corner of the screen and selecting another user, the screen goes black and the entire system locks up. Even CTRL+ALT+F1 through F7 does nothing. This is reproducible 100% of the time on this system. I can ssh into the box when the console locks up, and by running top, I see that Xorg is consuming about 100% of the CPU. Looking at the output of "ps axfu" in bash while the system is in this "locked up" state, here is the lightdm and X process tree: USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND root 1153 0.0 0.1 183508 4292 ? Ssl Dec26 0:00 lightdm root 2187 0.4 4.6 265976 164168 tty7 Ss+ 00:43 0:21 \_ /usr/bin/X :0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch stephane 2612 0.0 0.3 266400 10736 ? Ssl 01:52 0:00 \_ /usr/bin/gnome-session --session=ubuntu stephane 2650 0.0 0.0 12264 276 ? Ss 01:52 0:00 | \_ /usr/bin/ssh-agent /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/bin/gnome-session --session=ubuntu stephane 2703 0.8 3.0 562068 106548 ? Sl 01:52 0:08 | \_ compiz stephane 2801 0.0 0.0 4264 584 ? Ss 01:52 0:00 | | \_ /bin/sh -c /usr/bin/compiz-decorator stephane 2802 0.0 0.3 265744 13772 ? Sl 01:52 0:00 | | \_ /usr/bin/unity-window-decorator ...cut... root 3024 80.6 0.3 107928 13088 tty8 Rs+ 01:53 12:34 \_ /usr/bin/X :1 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:1 -nolisten tcp vt8 -novtswitch That last process, pid #3024 in this case, is what has the CPU pegged. In case it matters (I suspect it might) here is what I think may be the relevant information for my video card, taken from /var/log/Xorg.0.log: [ 3392.653] (II) Loading /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xorg/extra-modules/extra-modules.dpkg-tmp/modules/extensions/libglx.so [ 3392.653] (II) Module glx: vendor="FireGL - AMD Technologies Inc." [ 3392.653] compiled for 6.9.0, module version = 1.0.0 ... [ 3392.655] (II) LoadModule: "fglrx" [ 3392.655] (II) Loading /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xorg/extra-modules/extra-modules.dpkg-tmp/modules/drivers/fglrx_drv.so [ 3392.672] (II) Module fglrx: vendor="FireGL - ATI Technologies Inc." [ 3392.672] compiled for 1.4.99.906, module version = 8.88.7 [ 3392.672] Module class: X.Org Video Driver ... [ 3392.759] (==) fglrx(0): ATI 2D Acceleration Architecture enabled [ 3392.759] (--) fglrx(0): Chipset: "AMD Radeon HD 6410D" (Chipset = 0x9644) Lastly: I did see this posting: Change user on 11.10 hangs system ...but I checked, and the libpam-smbpass package isn't installed on this system.

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• A sample Memento pattern: Is it correct?

  - by TheSilverBullet

  Following this query on memento pattern, I have tried to put my understanding to test. Memento pattern stands for three things: Saving state of the "memento" object for its successful retrieval Saving carefully each valid "state" of the memento Encapsulating the saved states from the change inducer so that each state remains unaltered Have I achieved these three with my design? Problem This is a zero player game where the program is initialized with a particular set up of chess pawns - the knight and queen. Then program then needs to keep adding set of pawns or knights and queens so that each pawn is "safe" for the next one move of every other pawn. The condition is that either both pawns should be placed, or none of them should be placed. The chessboard with the most number of non conflicting knights and queens should be returned. Implementation I have 4 classes for this: protected ChessBoard (the Memento) private int [][] ChessBoard; public void ChessBoard(); protected void SetChessBoard(); protected void GetChessBoard(int); public Pawn This is not related to memento. It holds info about the pawns public enum PawnType: int { Empty = 0, Queen = 1, Knight = 2, } //This returns a value that shown if the pawn can be placed safely public bool IsSafeToAddPawn(PawnType); public CareTaker This corresponds to caretaker of memento This is a double dimentional integer array that keeps a track of all states. The reason for having 2D array is to keep track of how many states are stored and which state is currently active. An example: 0 -2 1 -1 2 0 - This is current state. With second index 0/ 3 1 - This state has been saved, but has been undone private int [][]State; private ChessBoard [] MChessBoard; //This gets the chessboard at the position requested and assigns it to originator public ChessBoard GetChessBoard(int); //This overwrites the chessboard at given position public void SetChessBoard(ChessBoard, int); private int [][]State; public PlayGame (This is the originator) private bool status; private ChessBoard oChessBoard; //This sets the state of chessboard at position specified public SetChessBoard(ChessBoard, int); //This gets the state of chessboard at position specified public ChessBoard GetChessBoard(int); //This function tries to place both the pawns and returns the status of this attempt public bool PlacePawns(Pawn);

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• Drawing a texture at the end of a trace (crosshair?) UDK

  - by Dave Voyles

  I'm trying to draw a crosshair at the end of my trace. If my crosshair does not hit a pawn or static mesh (ex, just a skybox) then the crosshair stays locked on a certain point at that actor - I want to say its origin. Ex: Run across a pawn, then it turns yellow and stays on that pawn. If it runs across the skybox, then it stays at one point on the box. Weird? How can I get my crosshair to stay consistent? I've included two images for reference, to help illustrate. Note: The wrench is actually my crosshair. The "X" is just a debug crosshair. Ignore that. /// Image 1 /// /// Image 2 /// /*************************************************************************** * Draws the crosshair ***************************************************************************/ function bool CheckCrosshairOnFriendly() { local float CrosshairSize; local vector HitLocation, HitNormal, StartTrace, EndTrace, ScreenPos; local actor HitActor; local MyWeapon W; local Pawn MyPawnOwner; /** Sets the PawnOwner */ MyPawnOwner = Pawn(PlayerOwner.ViewTarget); /** Sets the Weapon */ W = MyWeapon(MyPawnOwner.Weapon); /** If we don't have an owner, then get out of the function */ if ( MyPawnOwner == None ) { return false; } /** If we have a weapon... */ if ( W != None) { /** Values for the trace */ StartTrace = W.InstantFireStartTrace(); EndTrace = StartTrace + W.MaxRange() * vector(PlayerOwner.Rotation); HitActor = MyPawnOwner.Trace(HitLocation, HitNormal, EndTrace, StartTrace, true, vect(0,0,0),, TRACEFLAG_Bullet); DrawDebugLine(StartTrace, EndTrace, 100,100,100,); /** Projection for the crosshair to convert 3d coords into 2d */ ScreenPos = Canvas.Project(HitLocation); /** If we haven't hit any actors... */ if ( Pawn(HitActor) == None ) { HitActor = (HitActor == None) ? None : Pawn(HitActor.Base); } } /** If our trace hits a pawn... */ if ((Pawn(HitActor) == None)) { /** Draws the crosshair for no one - Grey*/ CrosshairSize = 28 * (Canvas.ClipY / 768) * (Canvas.ClipX /1024); Canvas.SetDrawColor(100,100,128,255); Canvas.SetPos(ScreenPos.X - (CrosshairSize * 0.5f), ScreenPos.Y -(CrosshairSize * 0.5f)); Canvas.DrawTile(class'UTHUD'.default.AltHudTexture, CrosshairSize, CrosshairSize, 600, 262, 28, 27); return false; } /** Draws the crosshair for friendlies - Yellow */ CrosshairSize = 28 * (Canvas.ClipY / 768) * (Canvas.ClipX /1024); Canvas.SetDrawColor(255,255,128,255); Canvas.SetPos(ScreenPos.X - (CrosshairSize * 0.5f), ScreenPos.Y -(CrosshairSize * 0.5f)); Canvas.DrawTile(class'UTHUD'.default.AltHudTexture, CrosshairSize, CrosshairSize, 600, 262, 28, 27); return true; }

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• Actor and Sprite, who should own these properties?

  - by Gerardo Marset

  I'm writing sort of a 2D game engine for making the process of creating games easier. It has two classes, Actor and Sprite. Actor is used for interactive elements (the player, enemies, bullets, a menu, an invisible instance that controls score, etc) and Sprite is used for animated (or not) images with transparency (or not). The actor may have an assigned sprite that represents it on the screen, which may change during the game. E.g. in a top-down action game you may have an actor with a sprite of a little guy that changes when attacking, walking, and facing different directions, etc. Currently the actor has x and y properties (its coordinates in the screen), while the sprite has an index property (the number of the frame currently being shown by the sprite). Since the sprite doesn't know which actor it belongs to (or if it belongs to an actor at all), the actor must pass its x and y coordinates when drawing the sprite. Also, since a actors may reset its sprite each frame (and usually do), the sprite's index property must be passed from the old to the new sprite like so (pseudocode): function change_sprite(new_sprite) old_index = my.sprite.index my.sprite = new_sprite() my.sprite.index = old_index % my.sprite.frames end I always thought this was kind of cumbersome, but it never was a big problem. Now I decided to add support for more properties. Namely a property to draw the sprite rotated, a property to draw it flipped, it a property draw it stretched, etc. These should probably belong to the sprite and not the actor, but if they do, the actor would have to pass them from the old to the new sprite each time it changes... On the other hand, if they belonged to the actor, the actor would have to pass each property to the sprite when drawing it (since the sprite doesn't know which actor it belongs to, and it shouldn't, since sprites aren't just meant to be used by actors, really). Another option I thought of would be having an extra class that owns all these properties (plus index, x and y) and links an actor with a sprite, but that doesn't come without drawbacks. So, what should I do with all these properties? Thanks!

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• How employable am I as a programmer?

  - by dsimcha

  I'm currently a Ph.D. student in Biomedical Engineering with a concentration in computational biology and am starting to think about what I want to do after graduate school. I feel like I've accumulated a lot of programming skills while in grad school, but taken a very non-traditional path to learning all this stuff. I'm wondering whether I would have an easy time getting hired as a programmer and could fall back on that if I can't find a good job directly in my field, and if so whether I would qualify for a more prestigious position than "code monkey". Things I Have Going For Me Approximately 4 years of experience programming as part of my research. I believe I have a solid enough grasp of the fundamentals that I could pick up new languages and technologies pretty fast, and could demonstrate this in an interview. Good math and statistics skills. An extensive portfolio of open source work (and the knowledge that working on these projects implies): I wrote a statistics library in D, mostly from scratch. I wrote a parallelism library (parallel map, reduce, foreach, task parallelism, pipelining, etc.) that is currently in review for adoption by the D standard library. I wrote a 2D plotting library for D against the GTK Cairo backend. I currently use it for most of the figures I make for my research. I've contributed several major performance optimizations to the D garbage collector. (Most of these were low-hanging fruit, but it still shows my knowledge of low-level issues like memory management, pointers and bit twiddling.) I've contributed lots of miscellaneous bug fixes to the D standard library and could show the change logs to prove it. (This demonstrates my ability read other people's code.) Things I Have Going Against Me Most of my programming experience is in D and Python. I have very little to virtually no experience in the more established, "enterprise-y" languages like Java, C# and C++, though I have learned a decent amount about these languages from small, one-off projects and discussions about language design in the D community. In general I have absolutely no knowledge of "enterprise-y" technlogies. I've never used a framework before, possibly because most reusable code for scientific work and for D tends to call itself a "library" instead. I have virtually no formal computer science/software engineering training. Almost all of my knowledge comes from talking to programming geek friends, reading blogs, forums, StackOverflow, etc. I have zero professional experience with the official title of "developer", "software engineer", or something similar.

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• Pathfinding for fleeing

  - by Philipp

  As you know there are plenty of solutions when you wand to find the best path in a 2-dimensional environment which leads from point A to point B. But how do I calculate a path when an object is at point A, and wants to get away from point B, as fast and far as possible? A bit of background information: My game uses a 2d environment which isn't tile-based but has floating point accuracy. The movement is vector-based. The pathfinding is done by partitioning the game world into rectangles which are walkable or non-walkable and building a graph out of their corners. I already have pathfinding between points working by using Dijkstras algorithm. The use-case for the fleeing algorithm is that in certain situations, actors in my game should perceive another actor as a danger and flee from it. The trivial solution would be to just move the actor in a vector in the direction which is opposite from the threat until a "safe" distance was reached or the actor reaches a wall where it then covers in fear. The problem with this approach is that actors will be blocked by small obstacles they could easily get around. As long as moving along the wall wouldn't bring them closer to the threat they could do that, but it would look smarter when they would avoid obstacles in the first place: Another problem I see is with dead ends in the map geometry. In some situations a being must choose between a path which gets it faster away now but ends in a dead end where it would be trapped, or another path which would mean that it wouldn't get that far away from the danger at first (or even a bit closer) but on the other hand would have a much greater long-term reward in that it would eventually get them much further away. So the short-term reward of getting away fast must be somehow valued against the long-term reward of getting away far. There is also another rating problem for situations where an actor should accept to move closer to a minor threat to get away from a much larger threat. But completely ignoring all minor threats would be foolish, too (that's why the actor in this graphic goes out of its way to avoid the minor threat in the upper right area): Are there any standard solutions for this problem?

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• Portland Silverlight User Group: WP7 &amp; XNA &ndash; I survived.

  - by George Clingerman

  Last night I gave a talk to the Portland Silverlight User Group. http://www.portlandsilverlight.net/Meetings/Details/15 And I survived (which you should have probably already figured out since you’re reading this post AND that’s what I titled it…) Really though it was a fantastic time and I had a lot of fun! I was a little nervous getting ready for it, but I’m always a little nervous getting ready for things. I had the game all written,  I knew the general flow for what the talk was going to be. I read over Scott Hanselman’s 11 Top Tips for a Successful Technical presentation (which has become something I do EVERY time I’m preparing for a talk). I gave myself a brief list of points I wanted to make sure I covered or worked into the talk. But then I was ready and I waited. I hate the waiting. It makes me nervous. Once I was up in front of the room though with my laptop open and some XNA code in front of me, my nerves go away. Then I’m ready. I know XNA, I love talking about XNA and I love sharing what I know and hearing questions that make me think. And hopefully that came through while I was talking. I had a freaking blast. The swag went quickly (and I was even able to hand out some XNA 2.0 books that have been around forever!) and the pizza was been gobbled down. I started the talk at about 6:10 and managed to cover a very brief intro to programming against the game loop (it’s a different concept and one that seems to trip a lot of people up getting started with game development) and then rolled into making a basic 2D game for Windows Phone 7 using XNA. And I finished the whole thing before 8:30. Wahoo! I’m planning on posting the source code and assets on my site so those should be coming soon. And to make things even better, they recorded the whole thing on video so everyone will get to see me pretend I can speak! Just wait till you hear the new song I wrote for this talk…

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• Why does my ID3DXSprite appear to be incorrectly scaled?

  - by Bjoern

  I am using D3D9 for rendering some simple things (a movie) as the backmost layer, then on top of that some text messages, and now wanted to add some buttons to that. Before adding the buttons everything seemed to have worked fine, and I was using a ID3DXSprite for the text as well (ID3DXFont), now I am loading some graphics for the buttons, but they seem to be scaled to something like 1.2 times their original size. In my test window I centered the graphic, but it being too big it just doesnt fit well, for example the client area is 640x360, the graphic is 440, so I expect 100 pixel on left and right, left side is fine [I took screenshot and "counted" the pixels in photoshop], but on the right there is only about 20 pixels) My rendering code is very simple (I am omitting error checks, et cetera, for brevity) // initially viewport was set to width/height of client area // clear device m_d3dDevice->Clear( 0, NULL, D3DCLEAR_TARGET|D3DCLEAR_STENCIL|D3DCLEAR_ZBUFFER, D3DCOLOR_ARGB(0,0,0,0), 1.0f, 0 ); // begin scene m_d3dDevice->BeginScene(); // render movie surface (just two triangles to which the movie is rendered) m_d3dDevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_ALPHABLENDENABLE,false); m_d3dDevice->SetSamplerState( 0, D3DSAMP_MAGFILTER, D3DTEXF_LINEAR ); // bilinear filtering m_d3dDevice->SetSamplerState( 0, D3DSAMP_MINFILTER, D3DTEXF_LINEAR ); // bilinear filtering m_d3dDevice->SetTextureStageState( 0, D3DTSS_COLORARG1, D3DTA_TEXTURE ); m_d3dDevice->SetTextureStageState( 0, D3DTSS_COLORARG2, D3DTA_DIFFUSE ); //Ignored m_d3dDevice->SetTextureStageState( 0, D3DTSS_COLOROP, D3DTOP_SELECTARG1 ); m_d3dDevice->SetTexture( 0, m_movieTexture ); m_d3dDevice->SetStreamSource(0, m_displayPlaneVertexBuffer, 0, sizeof(Vertex)); m_d3dDevice->SetFVF(Vertex::FVF_Flags); m_d3dDevice->DrawPrimitive(D3DPT_TRIANGLELIST, 0, 2); // render sprites m_sprite->Begin(D3DXSPRITE_ALPHABLEND | D3DXSPRITE_SORT_TEXTURE | D3DXSPRITE_DO_NOT_ADDREF_TEXTURE); // text drop shadow m_font->DrawText( m_playerSprite, m_currentMessage.c_str(), m_currentMessage.size(), &m_playerFontRectDropShadow, DT_RIGHT|DT_TOP|DT_NOCLIP, m_playerFontColorDropShadow ); // text m_font->DrawText( m_playerSprite, m_currentMessage.c_str(), m_currentMessage.size(), &m_playerFontRect, DT_RIGHT|DT_TOP|DT_NOCLIP, m_playerFontColorMessage ) ); // control object m_sprite->Draw( m_texture, 0, 0, &m_vecPos, 0xFFFFFFFF ); // draws a few objects like this m_sprite->End() // end scene m_d3dDevice->EndScene(); What did I forget to do here? Except for the control objects (play button, pause button etc which are placed on a "panel" which is about 440 pixels wide) everything seems fine, the objects are positioned where I expect them, but just too big. By the way I loaded the images using D3DXCreateTextureFromFileEx (resizing wnidow, and reacting to lost device, etc, works fine too). For experimenting, I added some code to take an identity matrix and scale is down on the x/y axis to 0.75f, which then gave me the expected result for the controls (but also made the text smaller and out of position), but I don't know why I would need to scale anything. My rendering code is so simple, I just wanted to draw my 2D objects 1;1 the size they came from the file... I am really very inexperienced in D3D, so the answer might be very simple...

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• How to Add a Taskbar to the Desktop in Ubuntu 14.04

  - by Lori Kaufman

  If you’ve switched to Ubuntu from Windows, it may take some time to get used to the new and different interface. However, you can easily incorporate a familiar Windows feature, the Taskbar, into Ubuntu to make the transition easier. A tool called Tint2 provides a bar at the bottom of the Ubuntu Desktop that resembles the Windows Taskbar. We will show you how to install it and make it start every time you log into Ubuntu. NOTE: When we say to type something in this article and there are quotes around the text, DO NOT type the quotes, unless we specify otherwise. Press Ctrl + Alt + T to open a Terminal window. To install Tint2, type the following line at the prompt and press Enter. sudo apt-get install tint2 Type your password at the prompt and press Enter. The progress of the installation displays and then a message displays saying how much disk space will be used. When asked if you want to continue, type a “y” and press Enter. When the installation has finished, close the Terminal window by typing “exit” at the prompt and pressing Enter. Click the Search button at the top of the Unity bar. Start typing “startup applications” in the Search box. Items that match what you type start displaying below the Search box. When the Startup Applications tool displays, click the icon to open it. On the Startup Applications Preferences window, click Add. On the Add Startup Program dialog box, enter a name for the startup application. This name displays in the list on the Startup Applications Preferences window. Type “tint2” in the Command edit box, enter a description in the Comment edit box, if desired, and click Add. Tint2 is added as a startup program and will start every time you log into Ubuntu. Click Close to close the Startup Applications Preferences window. Log out and log back in to make the Taskbar available on the desktop. You do not need to reboot the computer for this change to take effect. Now, when you minimize a program, an icon for it displays on the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen, just like the Taskbar in Windows. If you decide that you don’t want the Taskbar to display every time you log into Ubuntu, you can uncheck the Tint2 startup program on the Startup Applications Preferences window. You don’t need to delete it from the list.

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• Per-pixel collision detection - why does XNA transform matrix return NaN when adding scaling?

  - by JasperS

  I looked at the TransformCollision sample on MSDN and added the Matrix.CreateTranslation part to a property in my collision detection code but I wanted to add scaling. The code works fine when I leave scaling commented out but when I add it and then do a Matrix.Invert() on the created translation matrix the result is NaN ({NaN,NaN,NaN},{NaN,NaN,NaN},...) Can anyone tell me why this is happening please? Here's the code from the sample: // Build the block's transform Matrix blockTransform = Matrix.CreateTranslation(new Vector3(-blockOrigin, 0.0f)) * // Matrix.CreateScale(block.Scale) * would go here Matrix.CreateRotationZ(blocks[i].Rotation) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(new Vector3(blocks[i].Position, 0.0f)); public static bool IntersectPixels( Matrix transformA, int widthA, int heightA, Color[] dataA, Matrix transformB, int widthB, int heightB, Color[] dataB) { // Calculate a matrix which transforms from A's local space into // world space and then into B's local space Matrix transformAToB = transformA * Matrix.Invert(transformB); // When a point moves in A's local space, it moves in B's local space with a // fixed direction and distance proportional to the movement in A. // This algorithm steps through A one pixel at a time along A's X and Y axes // Calculate the analogous steps in B: Vector2 stepX = Vector2.TransformNormal(Vector2.UnitX, transformAToB); Vector2 stepY = Vector2.TransformNormal(Vector2.UnitY, transformAToB); // Calculate the top left corner of A in B's local space // This variable will be reused to keep track of the start of each row Vector2 yPosInB = Vector2.Transform(Vector2.Zero, transformAToB); // For each row of pixels in A for (int yA = 0; yA < heightA; yA++) { // Start at the beginning of the row Vector2 posInB = yPosInB; // For each pixel in this row for (int xA = 0; xA < widthA; xA++) { // Round to the nearest pixel int xB = (int)Math.Round(posInB.X); int yB = (int)Math.Round(posInB.Y); // If the pixel lies within the bounds of B if (0 <= xB && xB < widthB && 0 <= yB && yB < heightB) { // Get the colors of the overlapping pixels Color colorA = dataA[xA + yA * widthA]; Color colorB = dataB[xB + yB * widthB]; // If both pixels are not completely transparent, if (colorA.A != 0 && colorB.A != 0) { // then an intersection has been found return true; } } // Move to the next pixel in the row posInB += stepX; } // Move to the next row yPosInB += stepY; } // No intersection found return false; }

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• Simple thruster like behaviour when rotating sprite

  - by ensamgud

  I'm prototyping some 2D game concepts with XNA and have added some basic keyboard inputs to control a triangle sprite. When I press key up the sprite accelerates in it's current facing direction, when I release the key it brakes down. For rotation, when I press left/right keys I rotate the sprite. Currently the sprite immedately changes direction when I rotate it. What I want is for it to keep moving in the same direction when I rotate, until I hit key up, adding thrust in whatever direction the sprite is pointing at. This would simulate thrusters on a classic space shooter like Asteroids. I'm adding an image to describe the behaviour I'm after and some code samples of how I'm doing things at the moment. This is my player struct, holding information of the sprite. public struct PlayerData { public Vector2 Position; // where to draw the sprite public Vector2 Direction; // travel direction of sprite public float Angle; // rotation of sprite public float Velocity; public float Acceleration; public float Decelleration; public float RotationAcceleration; public float RotationDecceleration; public float TopSpeed; public float Scale; } This is how I'm currently handling thrusting / braking (when pressing/releasing key up) (simplified, removed some bounds checking etc): player.Velocity += player.Acceleration * 0.1f; player.Velocity -= player.Acceleration * 0.1f; And when I rotate the sprite left and right: player.Angle -= player.RotationAcceleration * 0.1f; player.Angle += player.RotationAcceleration * 0.1f; This runs in the update loop, keeps the direction updated and updates the position: Vector2 up = new Vector2(0f, -1f); Matrix rotMatrix = Matrix.CreateRotationZ(player.Angle); player.Direction = Vector2.Transform(up, rotMatrix); player.Direction *= player.Velocity; player.Position += player.Direction; I am following along various beginner tutorials and haven't found any describing this, but I have tried some on my own without success. Do I need to change my velocity and acceleration fields to Vectors instead of floats to accomplish this type of movement? I realise my Angle and the Direction vector is currently tied together and I need to disconnect these somehow to be able to rotate freely without changing the direction of the movement, but I can't quite figure out how to do this while keeping the acceleration/decceleration functional. Would appreciate an explanation rather than pure code samples. Thanks,

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• Turn-Based RPG Battle Instance Layout For Larger Groups

  - by SoulBeaver

  What a title, eh? I'm currently designing a videogame; a turn-based RPG like Final Fantasy (because everybody knows Final Fantasy). It's a 2D sprite game. These are my ideas for combat: -The player has a group of 15 members (main character included) -During battle, five of the group are designated as active, and appear in the battle. -These five may be switched out at leisure, or when one of the five die. -At any time, the Waiting members can cast buffs, be healed by the active members, or perform special attacks. -Battles should contain 10+ monsters at least. I'm aiming for 20, but I'm not sure if that's possible yet. -Battles should feel larger than normal due to the interaction of Waiting members, active members and the increased amount of monsters per battle. -The player has two rows in which to put the Active members: front and back. -Depending on the implementation, I might allow comboing of player attacks and skills. These are just design ideas, so beware! I have not been able to test this out yet- I have no idea yet if any of these ideas bunched together will make for a compelling game. What sounds good on paper doesn't necessarily have to be good in practice! What I'm asking now is how to create the layout for this. My starting point are the battles in Final Fantasy VI, with up to 5-6 monsters on the left and the characters on the right- monsters on both sides if it's a pincer attack. However, this view would not work feasible with my goal of 20 monsters and 5 characters. All the monsters on the left would appear cluttered unless I scale them far far back. If I create a pincer-like map, then there would be no real pincer-attack possible. If I space the monsters out I force the player to scroll the screen- a game mechanic I've come across and not enjoyed imho. My question is: does anybody have any layouts or guides for designing battle maps in turn-based RPGs, especially with a larger number of enemies taken into consideration? How should it look? I am not asking for specific combat mechanics, just the layout for the moment.

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• How to send multiple MVP matrices to a vertex shader in OpenGL ES 2.0

  - by Carbon Crystal

  I'm working my way through optimizing the rendering of sprites in a 2D game using OpenGL ES and I've hit the limit of my knowledge when it comes to GLSL and vertex shaders. I have two large float buffers containing my vertex coordinates and texture coordinates (eventually this will be one buffer) for multiple sprites in order to perform a single glDrawArrays call. This works but I've hit a snag when it comes to passing the transformation matrix into the vertex shader. My shader code is: uniform mat4 u_MVPMatrix; attribute vec4 a_Position; attribute vec2 a_TexCoordinate; varying vec2 v_TexCoordinate; void main() { v_TexCoordinate = a_TexCoordinate; gl_Position = u_MVPMatrix * a_Position; } In Java (Android) I am using a FloatBuffer to store the vertex/texture data and this is provided to the shader like so: mGlEs20.glVertexAttribPointer(mVertexHandle, Globals.GL_POSITION_VERTEX_COUNT, GLES20.GL_FLOAT, false, 0, mVertexCoordinates); mGlEs20.glVertexAttribPointer(mTextureCoordinateHandle, Globals.GL_TEXTURE_VERTEX_COUNT, GLES20.GL_FLOAT, false, 0, mTextureCoordinates); (The Globals.GL_POSITION_VERTEX_COUNT etc are just integers with the value of 2 right now) And I'm passing the MVP (Model/View/Projection) matrix buffer like this: GLES20.glUniformMatrix4fv(mMVPMatrixHandle, 1, false, mModelCoordinates); (mModelCoordinates is a FloatBuffer containing 16-float sequences representing the MVP matrix for each sprite) This renders my scene but all the sprites share the same transformation, so it's obviously only picking the first 16 elements from the buffer which makes sense since I am passing in "1" as the second parameter. The documentation for this method says: "This should be 1 if the targeted uniform variable is not an array of matrices, and 1 or more if it is an array of matrices." So I tried modifying the shader with a fixed size array large enough to accomodate most of my scenarios: uniform mat4 u_MVPMatrix[1000]; But this lead to an error in the shader: cannot convert from 'uniform array of 4X4 matrix of float' to 'Position 4-component vector of float' This just seems wrong anyway as it's not clear to me how the shader would know when to transition to the next matrix anyway. Anyone have an idea how I can get my shader to pick up a different MVP matrix (i.e. the NEXT 16 floats) from my MVP buffer for every 4 vertices it encounters? (I am using GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP so each sprite has 4 vertices). Thanks!

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• RTS Game Style Application [closed]

  - by Daniel Wynand van Wyk

  My question may seem somewhat odd, but I hope that my specifications will clarify EXACTLY what it is that I am after. I need some help choosing the right tooling for a particular endeavour. My background is in desktop application development and large back-end systems. I have worked primarily on the Microsoft stack using C# and the .Net framework. My goal is to develop a 2D, RTS style, interactive office simulation. The simulation will model various office spaces, office equipment, employees and their interactions with one another. The idea is to abstract the concept of an office completely. Under the hood the application will do many things that are nothing like a game. This includes P2P networking, VPN tunnelling, streaming video, instant messaging, document collaboration, remote screen sharing, file-sharing, virus scanning, VOIP, document scanning, faxing, emailing, distributed computing, content management and much more! A somewhat similar thing has been attempted by IBM, where they created a virtual office in second life. If their attempt was a game, the game-play would be notably horrible, to say the least! The users/players will drive and control my application through the various objects modelled in the simulation. A single application capable of performing all of these various tasks would be a nightmare to navigate for even the most expert user. Using the concept of a game, I can easily separate functionality by assigning them to objects that relate 1-1 with their real world counter-parts. This can greatly simplify computing for novice users, with many added benefits in terms of visibility, transparency of process and centralized configuration. My hope is to make complex computing tasks accessible to all kinds of users and to greatly reduce the cognitive load associated with using the many different utilities and applications inside office settings. The complexity is therefore limited to the complexity of the space in which you find yourself. I want the application to target as many platforms as possible and run on computers that have no accelerated graphics capabilities. The simulation won't contain any of the fancy eye-candy you find in modern games, to the contrary, my "game" will purposefully be clean and simple. The closest thing I could imagine would be an old game like "Theme Hospital" or the first instalment of "The Sims". All the content will be pre-created and not user-generated like Second Life. New functionality will be added via a plugin system. Given my background and nature of my "game", I would like to spend most of my time writing code that does not have to do with the simulated office, as the "game" is really just a glorified application menu. I have done much reading about existing engines, frameworks and tools. I need the help of an experienced game developer who has tried and tested various products over the years who can guide me in the right direction given my very particular needs. I would appreciate any help I can get!

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• OpenGL ES 2 jittery camera movement

  - by user16547

  First of all, I am aware that there's no camera in OpenGL (ES 2), but from my understanding proper manipulation of the projection matrix can simulate the concept of a camera. What I'm trying to do is make my camera follow my character. My game is 2D, btw. I think the principle is the following (take Super Mario Bros or Doodle Jump as reference - actually I'm trying to replicate the mechanics of the latter): when the caracter goes beyond the center of the screen (in the positive axis/direction), update the camera to be centred on the character. Else keep the camera still. I did accomplish that, however the camera movement is noticeably jittery and I ran out of ideas how to make it smoother. First of all, my game loop (following this article): private int TICKS_PER_SECOND = 30; private int SKIP_TICKS = 1000 / TICKS_PER_SECOND; private int MAX_FRAMESKIP = 5; @Override public void run() { loops = 0; if(firstLoop) { nextGameTick = SystemClock.elapsedRealtime(); firstLoop = false; } while(SystemClock.elapsedRealtime() > nextGameTick && loops < MAX_FRAMESKIP) { step(); nextGameTick += SKIP_TICKS; loops++; } interpolation = ( SystemClock.elapsedRealtime() + SKIP_TICKS - nextGameTick ) / (float)SKIP_TICKS; draw(); } And the following code deals with moving the camera. I was unsure whether to place it in step() or draw(), but it doesn't make a difference to my problem at the moment, as I tried both and neither seemed to fix it. center just represents the y coordinate of the centre of the screen at any time. Initially it is 0. The camera object is my own custom "camera" which basically is a class that just manipulates the view and projection matrices. if(character.getVerticalSpeed() >= 0) { //only update camera if going up float[] projectionMatrix = camera.getProjectionMatrix(); if( character.getY() > center) { center += character.getVerticalSpeed(); cameraBottom = center + camera.getBottom(); cameraTop = center + camera.getTop(); Matrix.orthoM(projectionMatrix, 0, camera.getLeft(), camera.getRight(), center + camera.getBottom(), center + camera.getTop(), camera.getNear(), camera.getFar()); } } Any thought about what I should try or what I am doing wrong? Update 1: I think I updated every value you can see on screen to check whether the jittery movement is affected by that, but nothing changed, so something must be fundamentally flawed with my approach/calculations.

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• Attaching new animations onto skeleton via props, a good idea?

  - by Cardin

  I'm thinking of coding a game with an idea of mine. I've coded 2D games before, but I'm new to 3D programming, so I'd like to ask if this idea of mine is feasible or out of my depth. I'm making a game where there are many different characters for the player to choose from (JRPG style). So to save time, I have an idea of creating many different varied characters using a completely naked body mesh and animation skeleton, standardised across all characters. For example, by placing different hair, boots, armor props on the character mesh, new characters can be formed. Kinda like playing dress-up with a barbie doll. I'm thinking this can be done by having a bone on the prop that I can programmically attach to the main mesh. Also, I plan to have some props add new animations to the base skeleton, so equipping some particular props would give it new attack, damage, idle animations. This is because I can't expect the character to have the same swinging animation if he had a big sword or an axe. I think this might be possible if the prop has its own instance of the animation skeleton with just only the new animations, and parenting the base body mesh to this new skeleton. So all the base body mesh has are just the basic animations, other animations come from the props. My concerns are, 1) the props might not attach to the mesh properly and jitter a lot, 2) since prop and body are animated differently, the props and base mesh will cause visual artefacts, like the naked thighs showing through the pants when the character walks, 3) a custom pipeline have to be developed to export skeletons without mesh, and also to attach the base body mesh to a new skeleton during runtime in the game. So my question: are these features considered 'easy' to code? Or am I trying to do something few have ever succeeded with on their own? It feels like all these can be done given enough time and I know I definitely have to do a bit of bone matrix calculations, but I really don't want to drag out the development timeline unnecessarily from coding mathematically intense things or analyzing how to parse 3D export formats. I'm currently only at the Game Design stage, so if these features aren't a good idea, I can simply change the design of the game. (Unrelated to question) I could always, as last resort, have the characters have predetermined outfit and weapon selections so as to animate everything manually.

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• Evolution laggy due to IMAP -profile or due to some odd Sync -issue?

  - by Izzy

  I'm fighting with Evolution. Basically it's working fine -- but it is very slow to react in certain situations. Helper questions Could it be that changing away from Bonobo has to do with slowing-down? There might be some trouble with the new engine and "asynchronous actions". What to do about it? Are there e.g. any configuration files? I want to get the previous "working mood" back. How can I speed this thing up? Different scenarios when sending a mail, the composer window hangs there inactive for a couple of seconds, everything grayed out. Though there is a green check mark saying it's sent, I'm not sure a) why it's still blocking everything and b) whether I could simply close it without "breaking"/"losing" anything. In earlier versions, the composer window was closing pretty fast, and one could see the message being stored into the local "outbox" until it was sent, and one could immediately continue with the next task. I prefer that behaviour over the current, where I cannot do anything in the application until the window closes. switching between modules. Coming from mail and switching to the address book takes a couple of seconds. Same for switching to the calendar. I read about different "possible causes" and tried a few things: I only have 3 local address books, so no networking should be involved here. To make sure, I switched to offline mode and then tried to access the address book. No noticeable difference. I use 3 Google Calendars. Switching to offline mode made a minor difference, but so minor that it also could be "imagination" since one might have expected this in this case according to some reports, disabling the tasks should help. Well, it didn't in my case, as I don't use them regularly (just two local items stored here) Maybe I should also mention that I'm using the KDE4 desktop (so no Unity or Gnome, though both is installed on the computer). And I did not have this issue before I updated to 12.04.

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• Is is possible to get a patch included in the current release? If so, how?

  - by Oli

  So a while back I reported a bug in Compiz's Place Window plugin. It's a fairly major regression for people affected by it: mainly those using Gnome-Fallback, judging by the reports. A patch surfaced a short time later. I created a PPA for testing and everybody involved so far is reporting the issues are fixed. It even fixes another bug. I've done testing with a standard Unity desktop and can say (for my testing) no adverse effects were visible. I want to get this pushed to Ubuntu right now for two main reasons: I'm selfish. I don't want to need to update my PPA every time a new version of Compiz is pushed to 12.04. I don't want Ubuntu users seeing their windows flying around because of a silly little bug. I want this patch pushed to Ubuntu's version of Compiz as soon as possible, so we can mark these bugs fixed and move on with our lives. Whose leg do I have to hump to get this pulled into Ubuntu right now? I don't maintain this project and it's an upstream thing but it's fairly integral to Ubuntu. I could go to Compiz but I imagine that if they accept the patch, it'll be months (at least a release) before it's anywhere near Ubuntu. And when I do find the right person, how can I make the process as slick as possible for them? I want them to see my request, go "Yup, that all looks great, done" and that be it. I don't want seventeen rounds of emails addressing aspects of the patch. More importantly, I don't want to waste their time either. And what do I have to provide them? My packaging skills are... lamentable. This was my first attempt at patching a package for redistribution so I've probably made every single packaging error known to man. Will they be happy with the original patch (so they can apply it themselves) or should I repackage things so the diff/changelog is a little cleaner (it took me a few goes and the versioning is all over the place). Note: This question is about Compiz but I'd prefer if answers could address other styles of package too so we have an authoritative and comprehensive thread of how to get things fixed.

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• Movement prediction for non-shooters

  - by ShadowChaser

  I'm working on an isometric (2D) game with moderate-scale multiplayer - 20-30 players. I've had some difficulty getting a good movement prediction implementation in place. Right now, clients are authoritative for their own position. The server performs validation and broad-scale cheat detection, and I fully realize that the system will never be fully robust against cheating. However, the performance and implementation tradeoffs work well for me right now. Given that I'm dealing with sprite graphics, the game has 8 defined directions rather than free movement. Whenever the player changes their direction or speed (walk, run, stop), a "true" 3D velocity is set on the entity and a packet it sent to the server with the new movement state. In addition, every 250ms additional packets are transmitted with the player's current position for state updates on the server as well as for client prediction. After the server validates the packet, it gets automatically distributed to all of the other "nearby" players. Client-side, all entities with non-zero velocity (ie/ moving entities) are tracked and updated by a rudimentary "physics" system - basically nothing more than changing the position by the velocity according to the elapsed time slice (40ms or so). What I'm struggling with is how to implement clean movement prediction. I have the nagging suspicion that I've made a design mistake somewhere. I've been over the Unreal, Half-life, and all other movement prediction/lag compensation articles I could find, but they all seam geared toward shooters: "Don't send each control change, send updates every 120ms, server is authoritative, client predicts, etc". Unfortunately, that style of design won't work well for me - there's no 3D environment so each individual state change is important. 1) Most of the samples I saw tightly couple movement prediction right into the entities themselves. For example, storing the previous state along with the current state. I'd like to avoid that and keep entities with their "current state" only. Is there a better way to handle this? 2) What should happen when the player stops? I can't interpolate to the correct position, since they might need to walk backwards or another strange direction if their position is too far ahead. 3) What should happen when entities collide? If the current player collides with something, the answer is simple - just stop the player from moving. But what happens if two entities take up the same space on the server? What if the local prediction causes a remote entity to collide with the player or another entity - do I stop them as well? If the prediction had the misfortune of sticking them in front of a wall that the player has gone around, the prediction will never be able to compensate and once the error gets to high the entity will snap to the new position.

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• Complete Beginner to Game Programming and Unreal Engine 4, Looking For Advice [on hold]

  - by onemic

  I am currently a 2nd year programming student(Just finished my first year so I will be starting my second year in September) and have mainly learned C and C++ in my classes. In terms of what I know of C++, I know about general inheritance, polymorphism, overloading operators, iterators, a little bit about templates(only class and function templates) etc. but not of the more advanced topics like linked lists and other sequential containers(containers in general I guess), enumerations, most of the standard library(other than like strings and vectors), and probably a bunch of other stuff I dont even know about yet. I subscribed to Unreal Engine 4 as I was very intrigued by their Unreal Tournament announcement earlier this month, especially after hearing that UE4 is going completely C++. Of course my end goal in doing this programming program is to eventually go into game/graphics programming. Since it's my summer off, I thought what better way then to actually apply some of my skills to a personal project so I actually have a firmer understanding of C++ past what my professors tell me. My questions are this: What would be the best way to start off making a small personal game in UE4 as a project for the summer? What should I be aiming for, especially for someone that is still learning C++? Should I focus on making a simple 2D game rather than a 3D one to get started? Seeing the Flappy Chicken showcase intrigued me because before I thought the UE engine was pretty much pigeonholed into being for FPS games What should my expectations be going into UE4 and a game engine for the first time?(UE4 will be my first foray into making a game) What can I expect to gain from making things in UE4, in terms of making games and in terms of further fleshing out my knowledge of C++? Would you recommend I start off 100% using C++ for scripting or using the visual blueprints? Since I'm not a designer, how would I be able to add objects and designs to my game? For someone at my level is retaining the UE4 subscription worth it or is it better to cancel and resub when I learn enough about UE4 and C++? Lastly is there anything to be gained in terms of knowledge/insight through me looking at the source code for UE4? I opened it in VS2013, but noticed that most of the files were C# files and not cpp's. Thanks in advance for taking the time to answer.

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