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  • Problem with drawing textures in OpenGL ES

    - by droidmachine
    I'm developing a 2D game for Android and i'm using the framework which has been told in the book which named Beginning Android Games by Mario Zechner.So my framework is well designed and using OpenGL 1.1.It's similar to libgdx. When i put my textures adjacent each other in my 2d surface,there are some spaces size as 1 px.But this problem only occur on my tablet.There aren't a problem like this on my phone.It's like in this picture: What can be the problem?I can't fix it from one week.

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  • Is Java viable for serious game development?

    - by tehtros
    Ever since I was a little kid, my dream has been to develop games. Well, now that I am older, more mature, and have some programming experience, I would like to start. However, I would like to turn this into a career. The problem, is that my language of choice is Java. Now, I am not intending this to be a Java vs. C++ question, but rather, is Java an acceptable language for serious game development, instead of lower level languages like C++. By serious, I mean high quality graphics, and being able to play a game with said high quality graphics, without much lag on decent computers. Also, eventually, possible making it to consoles. I have scoured the internet, but there are not very many resources for Java game development, not nearly as many as C++. In fact, most engines are written in C++. Once, I tried to play a made with jMonkeyEngine. The game was terribly slow, to the point where my computer froze. I had no other Java applications running and nothing too resource intensive. Keep in mind, that my computer can play most modern 3D games with ease. So, I am really serious about game development, is Java still a viable choice? I have tried multiple times to learn C++, but I don't really like the language. I don't really know why, but usually, whenever I try to learn, I can never grasp the topics. Also, my most of my friends know Java, and one is even anti-C++, saying that no one knows how to use it right. Then, he goes to say that "there is no right way to use C++, that it can not be used correctly. The nature of the language prevents good code." Also, if I continue to learn and improve Java now, and it turns out that later I am required to learn C++, will making the switch be difficult? So, in short, can Java be taken serious, for serious game development. This includes heavy graphics, fast game play without lag, and possibly, and easy switch to consoles?

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  • Learning XNA/Xbox Development [closed]

    - by CJ Sculti
    Possible Duplicate: How should I go about learning XNA? so I would like to get into Xbox game development (indie games.) The problem is I cant find ANY documentation or place to get started online. I was hoping someone here could point me in the right direction (tutorials or documentation.) I was also hoping someone could direct me to some kind of online course? (Paid or free.) I appreciate your time, thanks.

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  • Why is Spritebatch drawing my Textures out of order?

    - by Andrew
    I just started working with XNA Studio after programming 2D games in java. Because of this, I have absolutely no experience with Spritebatch and sprite sorting. In java, I could just layer the images by calling the draw methods in order. For a while, my Spritebatch was working fine in deferred sorting mode, but when I made a change to one of my textures, it suddenly started drawing them out of order. I have searched for a solution to this problem, but nothing seems to work. I have tried adding layer depths to the sprites and changing the sort mode to BackToFront or FrontToBack or even immediate, but nothing seems to work. Here is my drawing code: protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.Gray); Game1.spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Deferred, BlendState.AlphaBlend, SamplerState.PointClamp, null, null); for (int x = 0; x < 5; x++) { for (int y = 0; y < 5; y++) { region[x, y].draw(((float)w / aw)); // Draws the Tile-Based background } } player.draw(spriteBatch, ((float)w / aw));//draws the character (This method is where the problem occurs) enemy.draw(spriteBatch, (float)w/aw); // draws a basic enemy Game1.spriteBatch.End(); base.Draw(gameTime); } player.draw method: public void draw(SpriteBatch sb, float ratio){ //draws the player base (The character without hair or equipment) sb.Draw(playerbase[0], new Rectangle((int)(pos.X - (24 * ratio)), (int)(pos.Y - (48 * ratio)), (int)(48 * ratio), (int)(48 * ratio)), new Rectangle(orientation * 48, animFrame * 48, 48, 48), Color.White,0,Vector2.Zero,SpriteEffects.None,0); //draws the player's hair sb.Draw(playerbase[3], new Rectangle((int)(pos.X - (24 * ratio)), (int)(pos.Y - (48 * ratio)), (int)(48 * ratio), (int)(48 * ratio)), new Rectangle(orientation * 48, animFrame * 48, 48, 48), Color.White, 0, Vector2.Zero, SpriteEffects.None, 0); //draws the player's shirt sb.Draw(equipment[0], new Rectangle((int)(pos.X - (24 * ratio)), (int)(pos.Y - (48 * ratio)), (int)(48 * ratio), (int)(48 * ratio)), new Rectangle(orientation * 48, animFrame * 48, 48, 48), Color.White, 0, Vector2.Zero, SpriteEffects.None, 0); //draws the player's pants sb.Draw(equipment[1], new Rectangle((int)(pos.X - (24 * ratio)), (int)(pos.Y - (48 * ratio)), (int)(48 * ratio), (int)(48 * ratio)), new Rectangle(orientation * 48, animFrame * 48, 48, 48), Color.White, 0, Vector2.Zero, SpriteEffects.None, 0); //draws the player's shoes sb.Draw(equipment[2], new Rectangle((int)(pos.X - (24 * ratio)), (int)(pos.Y - (48 * ratio)), (int)(48 * ratio), (int)(48 * ratio)), new Rectangle(orientation * 48, animFrame * 48, 48, 48), Color.White, 0, Vector2.Zero, SpriteEffects.None, 0); } the game has a top-down perspective much like the early legend of zelda games. It draws sections of the texture depending on which direction the character is facing and the animation frame. However, instead of drawing the character in the order the draw methods are called, it ends up drawing the character out of order. Please help me with this problem.

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  • Game window systems and internal frames

    - by 2080
    I don't know if this is a valid question, but: What kind of window manager do games use which have internal frames (Frames inside frames)? Does this differ between the programming languages (Are e.g. in Java the AWT/Swing libraries used to manage these and other graphical elements, such as buttons,or is this to restrictive (speed, graphical possibilities?)) A special example would be EVE Online, where the client can use the ingame windows like on a normal desktop.

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  • Windows Azure – Write, Run or Use Software

    - by BuckWoody
    Windows Azure is a platform that has you covered, whether you need to write software, run software that is already written, or Install and use “canned” software whether you or someone else wrote it. Like any platform, it’s a set of tools you can use where it makes sense to solve a problem. The primary location for Windows Azure information is located at http://windowsazure.com. You can find everything there from the development kits for writing software to pricing, licensing and tutorials on all of that. I have a few links here for learning to use Windows Azure – although it’s best if you focus not on the tools, but what you want to solve. I’ve got it broken down here into various sections, so you can quickly locate things you want to know. I’ll include resources here from Microsoft and elsewhere – I use these same resources in the Architectural Design Sessions (ADS) I do with my clients worldwide. Write Software Also called “Platform as a Service” (PaaS), Windows Azure has lots of components you can use together or separately that allow you to write software in .NET or various Open Source languages to work completely online, or in partnership with code you have on-premises or both – even if you’re using other cloud providers. Keep in mind that all of the features you see here can be used together, or independently. For instance, you might only use a Web Site, or use Storage, but you can use both together. You can access all of these components through standard REST API calls, or using our Software Development Kit’s API’s, which are a lot easier. In any case, you simply use Visual Studio, Eclipse, Cloud9 IDE, or even a text editor to write your code from a Mac, PC or Linux.  Components you can use: Azure Web Sites: Windows Azure Web Sites allow you to quickly write an deploy websites, without setting a Virtual Machine, installing a web server or configuring complex settings. They work alone, with other Windows Azure Web Sites, or with other parts of Windows Azure. Web and Worker Roles: Windows Azure Web Roles give you a full stateless computing instance with Internet Information Services (IIS) installed and configured. Windows Azure Worker Roles give you a full stateless computing instance without Information Services (IIS) installed, often used in a "Services" mode. Scale-out is achieved either manually or programmatically under your control. Storage: Windows Azure Storage types include Blobs to store raw binary data, Tables to use key/value pair data (like NoSQL data structures), Queues that allow interaction between stateless roles, and a relational SQL Server database. Other Services: Windows Azure has many other services such as a security mechanism, a Cache (memcacheD compliant), a Service Bus, a Traffic Manager and more. Once again, these features can be used with a Windows Azure project, or alone based on your needs. Various Languages: Windows Azure supports the .NET stack of languages, as well as many Open-Source languages like Java, Python, PHP, Ruby, NodeJS, C++ and more.   Use Software Also called “Software as a Service” (SaaS) this often means consumer or business-level software like Hotmail or Office 365. In other words, you simply log on, use the software, and log off – there’s nothing to install, and little to even configure. For the Information Technology professional, however, It’s not quite the same. We want software that provides services, but in a platform. That means we want things like Hadoop or other software we don’t want to have to install and configure.  Components you can use: Kits: Various software “kits” or packages are supported with just a few clicks, such as Umbraco, Wordpress, and others. Windows Azure Media Services: Windows Azure Media Services is a suite of services that allows you to upload media for encoding, processing and even streaming – or even one or more of those functions. We can add DRM and even commercials to your media if you like. Windows Azure Media Services is used to stream large events all the way down to small training videos. High Performance Computing and “Big Data”: Windows Azure allows you to scale to huge workloads using a few clicks to deploy Hadoop Clusters or the High Performance Computing (HPC) nodes, accepting HPC Jobs, Pig and Hive Jobs, and even interfacing with Microsoft Excel. Windows Azure Marketplace: Windows Azure Marketplace offers data and programs you can quickly implement and use – some free, some for-fee.   Run Software Also known as “Infrastructure as a Service” (IaaS), this offering allows you to build or simply choose a Virtual Machine to run server-based software.  Components you can use: Persistent Virtual Machines: You can choose to install Windows Server, Windows Server with Active Directory, with SQL Server, or even SharePoint from a pre-configured gallery. You can configure your own server images with standard Hyper-V technology and load them yourselves – and even bring them back when you’re done. As a new offering, we also even allow you to select various distributions of Linux – a first for Microsoft. Windows Azure Connect: You can connect your on-premises networks to Windows Azure Instances. Storage: Windows Azure Storage can be used as a remote backup, a hybrid storage location and more using software or even hardware appliances.   Decision Matrix With all of these options, you can use Windows Azure to solve just about any computing problem. It’s often hard to know when to use something on-premises, in the cloud, and what kind of service to use. I’ve used a decision matrix in the last couple of years to take a particular problem and choose the proper technology to solve it. It’s all about options – there is no “silver bullet”, whether that’s Windows Azure or any other set of functions. I take the problem, decide which particular component I want to own and control – and choose the column that has that box darkened. For instance, if I have to control the wiring for a solution (a requirement in some military and government installations), that means the “Networking” component needs to be dark, and so I select the “On Premises” column for that particular solution. If I just need the solution provided and I want no control at all, I can look as “Software as a Service” solutions. Security, Pricing, and Other Info  Security: Security is one of the first questions you should ask in any distributed computing environment. We have certification info, coding guidelines and more, even a general “Request for Information” RFI Response already created for you.   Pricing: Are there licenses? How much does this cost? Is there a way to estimate the costs in this new environment? New Features: Many new features were added to Windows Azure - a good roundup of those changes can be found here. Support: Software Support on Virtual Machines, general support.    

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  • Ubuntu 12.10 Wine Crash Error Help

    - by Hao
    I'm trying to get wine to work for Hawken. I used winetricks and installed all the necessary components. Wine works fine with other games I have installed but when I try to run Hawken it crashes while loading with the following error: fixme:iphlpapi:CancelIPChangeNotify (overlapped 0xf2afb8): stub I'm new to Ubuntu so I have no idea how to fix this. Any help would be much appreciated. *Update: I've done some backtracking and it seems that this error is caused by the launcher not wine itself.

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  • Custom Music in Skyrim's Creation Kit?

    - by CptSupermrkt
    Can you bring in external music such as mp3s? If so, how? I didn't see anything about this in the wiki Bethesda released. Also how does this work with regards to the Steam Workshop? Don't imagine they would appreciate uploading copyrighted content. I don't particularly care about making a public mod, I just want to screw around privately and create dungeons/towns using music from some of my favorite games. Thanks.

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  • Displaying performance data per engine subsystem

    - by liortal
    Our game (Android based) traces how long it takes to do the world logic updates, and how long it takes to a render a frame to the device screen. These traces are collected every frame, and displayed at a constant interval (currently every 1 second). I've seen games where on-screen data of various engine subsystems is displayed, with the time they consume (either in text) or as horizontal colored bars. I am wondering how to implement such a feature?

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  • how to implement motion blur effect?

    - by PlayerOne
    I wanted to know how one would implement this motion blur or fade effect behind the soccer ball . Here is what I was thinking . You have the balls current position and you also keep its previous position(couple of sec back). and you draw a "streak" sprite between the 2 points. I have seen this effect lots of time implemented for projects in various 2d games and wanted to know if there is a standard technique. http://i45.tinypic.com/2n24j7r.png

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  • ATI (fglrx) Dual monitor / laptop hot-plugging

    - by Brendan Piater
    I feel like I've gone back 5 years on my desktop today. I'll try not dump to much frustration here... I been running 12.04 since alpha with the ATI open source drivers and the gnome 3 desktop. I been generally very happy with them with only small issues along the way. Now of course it does not support 3D acceleration 100%, so games like my newly purchased Amnesia from the Humble bundle would not play. OK, no worries, the ATI driver is in the repos so let me have a go I thought. With all this testing that's been done with multi-monitor support, what could go wrong...? How I use my computer: It's laptop, with a HD 3670 card in it. I spend about 50% of the time working directly on the laptop (at home) and about 50% of the time working with an additional display connected (at work), multi desktop environment. What happening now: installed drivers things seemed to working, save some small other bugs (not critical) this morning I take my machine and plug the additional monitor into it, and nothing happens... ok fine. open "displays" try configure dual display, won't work open ati config "thing" (cause it is a thing, a crap thing) and set-up monitors there reboot it says (oh ffs, really.... ok) reboot, login and wow, I got a gnome 2 desktop (presume gnome 3 fall back) and no multi-monitor...great. (screenshot: http://ubuntuone.com/5tFe3QNFsTSIGvUSVLsyL7 ) after getting into a situation where I had to Ctrl + Alt + Del to get out of a frozen display, I eventually manage to set-up a single display desktop on the "main" monitor ok.. time to go home... unplug monitor... nothing happens.. oh boy here we go... try displays again, nothing, just hangs the display.. great. crash all the apps and reboot... So it's been a trying day... What I really hope is that someone else has figured out how to avoid this PAIN. Please help with a solution that: allows me run fglrx (so I can run the games I want) allows me to hot-plug a monitor to my laptop and remove it again allows me to change the display so include the hot-plugged monitor (preferable automatically like it did with the open drivers) Next best if that's not possible: switch between laptop only display and monitor only display easily (i.e. not having to reboot/logout/suspened etc) Really appreciate the time of anyone that has a solution. Thanks in advance. Regards Brendan PS: I guess I should file a bug about this too, so some direction as to the best place to file this would be appreciated too.

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  • How can I do Mouse Selection In OpenGL 3.0?

    - by NoobScratcher
    Hello I'm pretty good programmer I've made my own 2D games in SDL and made a gui in 3D using Old OpenGL and Modern OpenGL but.. I'm having problems with trying to click 3D models with opengl I have no idea what to do too be honest. Do I read the area that I've clicked? or what do I do? 100% shore this has been asked before but I just don't know what to do...?? using : OpenGL 3.0 WIN32 API C++

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  • Scaling Down Pixel Art?

    - by Michael Stum
    There's plenty of algorithms to scale up pixel art (I prefer hqx personally), but are there any notable algorithms to scale it down? In my case, the game is designed to run at 1280x720, but if someone plays at a lower resolution I want it to still look good. Most Pixel Art discussions center around 320x200 or 640x480 and upscaling for use in console emulators, but I wonder how modern 2D games like the Monkey Island Remake look good on lower resolutions? (Ignoring the options of having multiple versions of assets (essentially, mipmapping))

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  • Keeping the camera from going through walls in a first person game in Unity?

    - by Timothy Williams
    I'm using a modified version of the standard Unity First Person Controller. At the moment when I stand near walls, the camera clips through and lets me see through the wall. I know about camera occlusion and have implemented it in 3rd person games, but I have no clue how I'd accomplish this in a first person game, since the camera doesn't move from the player at all. How do other people accomplish this?

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  • Humble Indie Bundle Shows GNU/Linux Gaming Statistics

    <b>Inatux:</b> "Games have become the topic of late. Osmos developers wonder whether there is enough market share for GNU+Linux game ports to be worth the cost, but they aren't the only ones. It's been discussed time and time again, is a GNU+Linux -- or really any Unix or Unix-like -- port worth it?"

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  • map data structure in pacman

    - by Sam Fisher
    i am trying to make a pacman game in c# using GDI+, i have done some basic work and i have previously replicated games like copter-it and minesweeper. but i am confused about how do i implement the map in pacman, i mean which datastructure to use, so i can use it for moving AI controlled objects and check collisions with walls. i thought of a 2d array of ints but that didnt make sense to me. looking for some help. thanks.

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  • Starting point for a simple game written in action script [closed]

    - by Hossein
    Possible Duplicate: AS3/Flash Game Dev: Looking for good & current step by step. Hi, I want to develop a simple game like: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/games/falldown2 And then making it a bit more fancy. But I don't know where to start. I have already started AS3 so I know about the syntax and stuff, but I am kinda lost. Does anyone knows of a nice starting point or a tutorial that can help me with this? Thanks

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  • Protection against CheatEngine and other injectors [duplicate]

    - by Lucas
    This question already has an answer here: Strategies to Defeat Memory Editors for Cheating - Desktop Games 10 answers Is protection against CheatEngine and other inject tools are possible to do? I was thinking a day and the only one idea I've got is about writting some small application which will scan the processes running every second, and in case if any injector will be found the game client will exit immadiately. I'm writing here to see your opinions on this case as some of you may have some expierence against protecting the game clients against DLL or PYC injection or something.

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  • Voice artist for a game for kids

    - by devmiles.com
    We're making a game for kids which should include about 50 spoken phrases. I'm asking for help in finding the right voice artist / studio for this. I've tried searching the web but couldn't find anything that would make me sure that it would work for us or games in general. So I'm looking for references from those of you who had a successful collaboration with artists or studios. Any help would be appreciated.

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  • how to watch??? England vs Belgium live stream Soccer friendly match ESPN

    - by Dada Fafa
    Do you want to watch:England vs Belgium live streaming online on pc?Searching for a good way to watch England vs Belgium live streaming online today? You've come to the right place!We'll show you how to watch England vs BelgiumNBA games live stream online in perfect high definition quality using any PC or Mac computer! It's possible! Now you can watch every minute of England vs Belgiumonline live,and in true HD quality no matter where you are! WANNA WATCH England vs Belgium LIVE STREAM MATCH

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  • Google I/O Sandbox Case Study: Angry Birds

    Google I/O Sandbox Case Study: Angry Birds We interviewed Rovio, the makers of Angry Birds, at the Google I/O Sandbox on May 11, 2011 and they explained to us the benefits of building on Chrome. Angry Birds, one of the most popular games for mobile devices, is now available on Chrome! For more information about developing on Chrome, visit: code.google.com For more information on Rovio, visit: www.rovio.com From: GoogleDevelopers Views: 19 0 ratings Time: 01:14 More in Science & Technology

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  • Building general programming skills?

    - by toleero
    Hello :) I currently am quite new to programming, I've had exposure to a few languages (C#, PHP, JavaScript, VB, and some others) and I'm quite new to OOP. I was just wondering what is the best way to build up general programming/problem solving skills without being language specific? I was thinking maybe of something like Project Euler but more geared towards newbies? Thanks! Edit: I am looking at getting into Game Scripting/Programming, I'm already in Games but in a different discipline :)

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  • Memory Glutton

    - by AreYouSerious
    I have to admit that I can't get enough storage. I have hard drives just sitting around in case I need to move somthing, or I'm going to a friends and either they want something I have or I want something they might have. What I'm going to talk about today is cost effective memory for devices. I don't know how this particualr device will work in a camera, as That's not what I use in my camera, in fact I don't have a camera that doesn't either use SD, or the old compact flash card, that's not so compact anymore. There's this thing that uses two micro sd cards to double the capacity of your memory, and it costs about 4 bucks, without the Micro SD card. I have had one for about a year and was going to throw it away because I couldn't get it to work with my computer, or with my Sony Reader. However I found out by one last ditch effort that this thing works beautifully with my Sony PSP. there is no software to speak of associated with this thing, you simply put in two SD cards of the same size... (if you put in two different sizes it will still work, you'll only double the smallest cards size though) and format through the psp. Viola you know have a 29 GB memory card for your PSP. why is this important ? well for starters you can carry more music and more videos. Second if you have gone the way of the hacker.... you can store more games on your card... There are just a few things you have to note.... I speak from experience... you have to use the usb connection to the PSP to do any file moving, as I said previously said card doesn't play well with my computers or card readers... I not saying it won't work at all, just hasn't work with anything I own. Second. If for some reason you try to Hack/crack your PSP don't attempt to delete a game from the psp, use the usb file browser to remove games. if you delete from the PSP you are likely to have to move all your files off, reformat and start again... just a couple things I have noticed... if I had done something like that.   anyway, Here's a link.... http://www.photofast-adapter.com/  and if you want to buy one, get it off ebay, I've seen them as low as $1.99

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  • The True Cost of a Solution

    - by D'Arcy Lussier
    I had a Twitter chat recently with someone suggesting Oracle and SQL Server were losing out to OSS (Open Source Software) in the enterprise due to their issues with scaling or being too generic (one size fits all). I challenged that a bit, as my experience with enterprise sized clients has been different – adverse to OSS but receptive to an established vendor. The response I got was: Found it easier to influence change by showing how X can’t solve our problems or X is extremely costly to scale. Money talks. I think this is definitely the right approach for anyone pitching an alternate or alien technology as part of a solution: identify the issue, identify the solution, then present pros and cons including a cost/benefit analysis. What can happen though is we get tunnel vision and don’t present a full view of the costs associated with a solution. An “Acura”te Example (I’m so clever…) This is my dream vehicle, a Crystal Black Pearl coloured Acura MDX with the SH-AWD package! We’re a family of 4 (5 if my daughters ever get their wish of adding a dog), and I’ve always wanted a luxury type of vehicle, so this is a perfect replacement in a few years when our Rav 4 has hit the 8 – 10 year mark. MSRP – $62,890 But as we all know, that’s not *really* the cost of the vehicle. There’s taxes and fees added on, there’s the extended warranty if I choose to purchase it, there’s the finance rate that needs to be factored in… MSRP –   $62,890 Taxes –      $7,546 Warranty - $2,500 SubTotal – $72,936 Finance Charge – $ 1094.04 Grand Total – $74,030 Well! Glad we did that exercise – we discovered an extra $11k added on to the MSRP! Well now we have our true price…or do we? Lifetime of the Vehicle I’m expecting to have this vehicle for 7 – 10 years. While the hard cost of the vehicle is known and dealt with, the costs to run and maintain the vehicle are on top of this. I did some research, and here’s what I’ve found: Fuel and Mileage Gas prices are high as it is for regular fuel, but getting into an MDX will require that I *only* purchase premium fuel, which comes at a premium price. I need to expect my bill at the pump to be higher. Comparing the MDX to my 2007 Rav4 also shows I’ll be gassing up more often. The Rav4 has a city MPG of 21, while the MDX plummets to 16! The MDX does have a bigger fuel tank though, so all in all the number of times I hit the pumps might even out. Still, I estimate I’ll be spending approximately $8000 – $10000 more on gas over a 10 year period than my current Rav4. Service Options Limited Although I have options with my Toyota here in Winnipeg (we have 4 Toyota dealerships), I do go to my original dealer for any service work. Still, I like the fact that I have options. However, there’s only one Acura dealership in all of Winnipeg! So if, for whatever reason, I’m not satisfied with the level of service I’m stuck. Non Warranty Service Work Also let’s not forget that there’s a bulk of work required every year that is *not* covered under warranty – oil changes, tire rotations, brake pads, etc. I expect I’ll need to get new tires at the 5 years mark as well, which can easily be $1200 – $1500 (I just paid $1000 for new tires for the Rav4 and we’re at the 5 year mark). Now these aren’t going to be *new* costs that I’m not used to from our existing vehicles, but they should still be factored in. I’d budget $500/year, or $5000 over the 10 years I’ll own the vehicle. Final Assessment So let’s re-assess the true cost of my dream MDX: MSRP                    $62,890 Taxes                       $7,546 Warranty                 $2,500 Finance Charge         $1094 Gas                        $10,000 Service Work            $5000 Grand Total           $89,030 So now I have a better idea of 10 year cost overall, and I’ve identified some concerns with local service availability. And there’s now much more to consider over the original $62,890 price tag. Tying This Back to Technology Solutions The process that we just went through is no different than what organizations do when considering implementing a new system, technology, or technology based solution, within their environments. It’s easy to tout the short term cost savings of particular product/platform/technology in a vacuum. But its when you consider the wider impact that the true cost comes into play. Let’s create a scenario: A company is not happy with its current data reporting suite. An employee suggests moving to an open source solution. The selling points are: - Because its open source its free - The organization would have access to the source code so they could alter it however they wished - It provided features not available with the current reporting suite At first this sounds great to the management and executive, but then they start asking some questions and uncover more information: - The OSS product is built on a technology not used anywhere within the organization - There are no vendors offering product support for the OSS product - The OSS product requires a specific server platform to operate on, one that’s not standard in the organization All of a sudden, the true cost of implementing this solution is starting to become clearer. The company might save money on licensing costs, but their training costs would increase significantly – developers would need to learn how to develop in the technology the OSS solution was built on, IT staff must learn how to set up and maintain a new server platform within their existing infrastructure, and if a problem was found there was no vendor to contact for support. The true cost of implementing a “free” OSS solution is actually spinning up a project to implement it within the organization – no small cost. And that’s just the short-term cost. Now the organization must ensure they maintain trained staff who can make changes to the OSS reporting solution and IT staff that will stay knowledgeable in the new server platform. If those skills are very niche, then higher labour costs could be incurred if those people are hard to find or if trained employees use that knowledge as leverage for higher pay. Maybe a vendor exists that will contract out support, but then there are those costs to consider as well. And let’s not forget end-user training – in our example, anyone that runs reports will need to be trained on how to use the new system. Here’s the Point We still tend to look at software in an “off the shelf” kind of way. It’s very easy to say “oh, this product is better than vendor x’s product – and its free because its OSS!” but the reality is that implementing any new technology within an organization has a cost regardless of the retail price of the product. Training, integration, support – these are real costs that impact an organization and span multiple departments. Whether you’re pitching an improved business process, a new system, or a new technology, you need to consider the bigger picture costs of implementation. What you define as success (in our example, having better reporting functionality) might not be what others define as success if implementing your solution causes them issues. A true enterprise solution needs to consider the entire enterprise.

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