🚀 go-pugleaf

nobody <nob...@csufresno.edu> wrote:
   
>  Sonic, it does tell that PC gaming is gaining a mainstream acceptance. 
>  But the future of PC gaming is not as bright as it seems.

If one were as misinformed as you, perhaps it would seem that way.
However, some of us who have interest in PC gaming take the time to
actually resarch its progression- apparently you do not.  The
resulting message is so far off-base with innacurate technical specs,
ignorance of developer movement and arising industry standards, and
the resulting faulty logic displayed that the message could almost be
considered a troll.  I hope it is.

Let's begin the corrections, shall we?  Take out your notebooks and
turn to page 1.

(brief X86 history deleted)

>  clock frequency as the previous X86 processor, the 486. P5 was the max 
>  a native X86 processor can achieve in performence, so Intel chose to 
>  make a RISC processor that would emulate 386 instruction set in order 
>  to increase the performence, and P6 was born. P6 is the first X86 
>  precessor from Intel that is not X86; hence it is an admission from 
>  Intel that it is no longer possible to enhance X86 architecture.

First error.  The p6 is a X86 chip through and through- any readings
on the chip would indicate this. It does no "emulation" of any sort.
It gains its speed by further tweaking the X86 architecture with more
advanced branch prediction and the same-die L2 cache.  If the P6 was
truly a RISC chip "emulating" a 386, then it would of course have a
super-fast "native" mode speed that you could program directly.
Obviously, it does not.

The only X86 compatible chip that could come close to be called a
"RISC" chip that is on the market is the NexGen, which breaks down X86
instructions into _risc-"like"_ smaller instructions.  AMD and future
clones may take this approach- but it doesn't mean they're
"emulating", just taking a different path to the same goal of very
fast X86 compatible processors.


>  also the first X86 that will not show a significant performence jump 
>  over its predecessor, P5 at same clock frequency. P6 will be 40~60% 
>  faster than P5 at the same clock frequency when running 32bit code, but 
>  no more. Intel hopes to increase the performence by increasing the 
>  clock frequency of processor and putting L2 Cache right next to the 
>  processor, both very expensive options.

Not "options".  The P6 from day-one will have the L2 cache in the same
die.  And the advantage of the design of the P6 is that it can be
scaled to higher clocks relatively easier than the Pentium.  Like all
Intel chips, it will start out expensive, then drop in price.  With
actual competition, perhaps even more quickly than the Pentium did.

Keep in mind, all benchmarks done thus far are very early and based
also, on early versions of 32-bit software.  We'll know the real
performance of the P6 with 32-bit software once developers have had
time to work with the beast.

>At the same time, more trouble 
>  follows P6. The P6 was optimised to emulate 386 and above,

It was designed to deal with 32-bit code, not "optimized" to "emulate"
a 386.  Good lord, is this from a Electronic Games Monthly article, or
is McDonalds producing pamphlets on modern processor design for
interesting reading while you shove down a Big Mac?

>  emulation performence of 286 and below is very poor. A 133Mhz P6 will 
>  run old 16 bit codes(DOS, Windows3.1, all PC games)

PC games have been 32-bit for years, with the DOS 4GW extender.  DOS
is barely an OS in these instances, it's nothing more of a "loader"
for these games.  Ever watched the screen upon Doom loading up?  It
loads ITS OWN OS.  How many games released in the past year and a half
do not run on DOS 4GW?  Very, very few.


>  100Mhz P5 can. It will run Win95 and its "native" applications about 
>  same speed at 133Mz P5, and it will run WindowsNT and Unixs 30%~60% 
>  fatser than a 133Mhz P5. Since it is very unlikely anybody would run 
>  their games on NT or Unix, P6 provides no speed improvement over P5 for 
>  PC gamers. Fianlly, gaming on X86 has hit the ceiling.

Completely untrue, as the P6 will be scaled to higher clock speeds
that the Pentium could only dream of.  And the Pentium is about to be
increased as well- 150 & 166mhz speeds.

As well, for the first time the Pentium and P6 will have competition.
NexGen has their rivals waiting for 1996.  Along with AMD.  Cyrix.
Their first generation chips will come closer to P6 than Pentium, and
are not reported to have the problems with 16-bit code than the P6
has.  

All of this is quite irrelevant to the PC as a gaming machine in the
near future, however.  The processor has not been the problem- a P90
is significantly more powerfull than the processors in even the U64
and M2 (although the M2's floating point speed is impressive, the PPC
602 is priced around $40 for a _reason_).  The speed boost is in
custom 3D and 2D hardware, which you now attempt to address below.
The PC's advances in gaming have been incremental until now.  Gaming
on the X86 platform has hardly hit the ceiling, the bar has been
raised in one go far higher than ever before.


>   Then there is the problem with PC polygon graphics accelerator cards.
>  The newer consoles from Sega and Sony blow away even the fastest PCs 
>  when rendering texture mapped polygons, and the Pentium PCs need 
>  polygon cards in order to compete with Sega/Sony machine. But there are 
>  some problems; There are no industry standard polygon processor. 

Of course not.  Why would you want there to be?  The beauty of the PC-
competition.  Look at the rate of progress of 2D accelerator cards,
the newest 64-bit ones blow the doors off the old 32-bit models
released only a couple of years ago.  They succeeded because app
developers under Windows didn't know your chip- they didn't have to.
Windows GDI and the chip makers driver handled this, all acceleration
and color depth options that the card provided were transparent to the
software designer. 

And now Microsoft is doing this for games with it's 3D DDI layer in
95, its Reality Lab games 3D API, and its DirectX suite of API's for
game development.  Developer reaction has been _very_ positive.  They
don't have to know about your 3D card or 2D chipset- 95 handles it.
OS/2 also has something similar in the works as well.

DOS can handle it through the API's the cards support in hardware, and
many support the same ones- Brender, Renderware, etc.  Any game
written with these API's in DOS will be automatically accelerated with
the card that handles the API- FX fighter with it's game based on
Brender, for example.  Don't have a hardware accelerator?  Then the
game will simply run slower and in a lower resolution/colour depth.
When you get one, then you can enjoy the benefits.  And enjoy it more
when you get a more powerfull one in the years to come.  Your old
console games are not "faster" or "better looking" on your new
version- if they work at all, that is.

And it's hardly a couple of companies tepidly testing the water.
Cirrus Logic, Yamaha, ATI, Matrox, Lockheed (which, while making
military simulators also designed SEGA's Model 2 board) and others
will all be producing 3D chips for many different board manufacturers.
The selection will be quite vast by late '96.


>  Second, such cards cost more than Sega/Sony's whole machines, hence not 
>  very cost effective. By the time the polygon cards are in widespead 
>  use, newer Sega/Sony machines that once again blow away anything 
>  available on the PC will emerge, so it is back to square one.

PC's will always cost more than consoles of course.  Some 2D graphics
cards cost more than Playstations right now, but people still buy the
(hell, people spend over $300 on friggin' _sound cards_!) Why?
Because it's a PC.  It does more than play games.  And these 3D cards
are also standard SVGA Windows accelerators- and some, like Diamonds
Edge, even have 32-voice wavetable, video acceleration, and enhanced
digital game ports (you have even use Saturn joysticks on the Diamond
model).  They _replace_ the current 2D graphics cards, and barely cost
more- in some cases, less. 

Why settle for a 2D card when you can get more?  And that's what
system advertisements will be saying, when they compare their
same-price "mulimedia powerhouse" to a similar system with a standard
graphics card.  The interests of gaming ALONE will make these cards
popular, if not just for the fact they will devour their 2D
counterparts as standard system components.  But then tack on features
in your ad like "navigate the Web in real-time 3D", show the
advantages of previewing your 3D models in shaded rather than
wireframe mode for 3D packages, creating animations for more effective
presentations, etc.  There is little reason for system makers _not_ to
include 3D cards as standard equipment when their price is so
reasonable.  In time, they will.

With competition so fierce in the PC marketplace, by the time the
next-generation Sony and Sega machines are introduced, the PC will
also be well into its second, and perhaps third generation of 3D
accelerators.  All technology companies share in the same resources-
if it can be put on a $400 console, it can be put on a $300 graphics
card (or less).  3DO is even rumoured to be using its M2 technology in
a PC graphics board. That is assuming of course, the sales of these
next generation consoles warrant more versions- we'll see.  So far,
Saturn sales in North America have hardly been earth-shattering, we'll
see with the Playstation.

You seem to be concentrating entirely on 3D polygon/sec performance as
the measure of a gaming system.  Faulty conclusions based on
innacurate (or lack of) information taken for granted in this area of
the PC's development, but the PC is much more.  People enjoy PC games
for the variety- play Mortal Kombat III, then have a game of Command
and Conquer or Panzer General.  Want more Doom levels?  Download 'em.
Add patches to your games.  Play over the phone with a modem. Network.
Play in high resolutions on your monitor rather than blurry TV.  Use
your mouse instead of a slow joystick to direct troop movements.  The
list goes on. 
  
>   Then there is a problem with novice userd using PC. Even with Win95, 
>  the PC is still harder to use than a Mac.

Certainly debatable.  The new 3D cards are plug and play.  Right now,
yes, the Mac is still "easier" than Win95- but that is subjective.  95
may not support all legacy hardware, but with plug and play as the
months go by, it truly does get easier and easier.  It's close enough
now that if you can operate a Mac, you'll be able to operate a Windows
95 machine.  It's a monumental leap over Windows+DOS.

> To millions of public who 
>  can't even program their own VCRs, the PC still remains as "a 
>  impossible   to use" machine. With the consoles, it is as easy as 
>  "1.Put in the CD into the machine. 2.Press Play button" 

With Autoplay in Win95, you insert the CD.  The game runs.  Done.

Windows 95 is a huge jump in usability and accessibilty for the PC,
and yet with the awful DOS/Windows 3.1, it's still sold millions and
is gaining market share.  Your prediction is now the PC is in more
trouble, because it has improved in this one area so significantly.
Bizarre. 

I must question what do you own now?  What kind of system?  How long
have you been in PC gaming?  To not know the rought details in my
rebuttal above indicates an extreme amount of ignorance and general
blindess to the PC gaming industry when stories relative to Win95 and
3D hardware have been front-page news in most PC Gaming magazines for
the last 3 months, and go into far more detail that I did. I have
nothing against opinions, just ill-informed ones.