Wordpress
I decided my site was kinda looking ugly, and adding new features to it took time. So despite its valid CSS and HTML, I’ve decided to go with using Wordpress, so it’ll be a few days before everything is fully transferred over.
New PC Plans
With my job near starting (This Monday), I’ve decided my PC needs a bit of an upgrade, been nearly a year since I last added something to it.
A lot of things I already have such as a great 2ms 3000:1 monitor, and G7 carbon fibre edition mouse.
So after a while of browsing the web, checking bandwidths of DDR3 over DDR2, and seeing what I could build on the Dell website, I starting playing around with ideas on Scan’s website, looking for some amazing parts.
The end result in my opinion, is a Behemoth of a machine, and I was holding back to keep the cost low (Imagine 3x SLi).
Heres what I have got:
Motherboard: Asus Striker II Extreme
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9770
Memory: 4GB (2×2GB) CorsairTwinX XMS3 Dominator DDR3
GPU (2x): 1GB EVGA 9800 GX2
HDD (2x): 1TB Samsung (32MB Cache)
Sound Card: Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion
This all comes to a grand total of $2600.97. Just under a grand less than what Dell would have charged for a similar machine. The two HDD I will be putting in Raid 0 Striped.
Originally I was going to get a PhysX card, but as a friend pointed out to me, the latest nVidia drivers allow a 9 series card to be used for physics calculations.
Needless to say, unless I get out of a loan, its gonna be a gradual buildup til I can afford such a machine.
New and Delete Placement Operators
I recently discovered two operators that expand on new and delete. They are known as the placement operators. Basically they allow you to allocate memory to preallocated memory, rather than calling new and delete for every object (reducing segfaults). This is also good for games, create your own memory management class that implements this and you’ll never need to worry about unfreed memory, as well as how much memory wasn’t freed. I’ll probably add some code to tutorial section, but for the moment, here is a small example of how it works.
- // --- [ includes ] -------------------------------------------
- #include <iostream>
- #include <new>
- // --- [ class ] ----------------------------------------------
- class clsTest
- {
- // Attributes
- private:
- int m_Value;
- // Functions
- public:
- // Constructor
- clsTest( void )
- {
- setValue( 20 );
- }
- // Set Value
- void setValue( int inValue )
- {
- m_Value = inValue;
- }
- // Get Value
- int getValue( void ) const
- {
- return m_Value;
- }
- };
- // --- [ entry point ] ----------------------------------------
- int main()
- {
- // 2096 Bytes of Data
- char buffer[2096];
- // Allocate Memory from Buffer and call constructor
- clsTest *lpClass = new (buffer) clsTest;
- // Get Value set in Constructor
- std::cout << "Value: " << lpClass->getValue() << std::endl;
- // Call Destructor
- lpClass->~clsTest();
- return 0;
- }
C++ 0x Standard
I was reading through the new C++ Standard today, needing a break from the Massively Multiplayer Game Development book I”ve been reading. Some very nice features are being added with the new standard, such as Lambda functions, initializer lists, and finally hash tables to the Standard Template Library.
Some Nice C++ Sites
Whilst idling in IRC and working on an application, and reading a great book I found in the library (Object Orientated Game Design - from what I’ve read from other places, this one has the best descriptions and examples I’ve seen. Though I haven’t read that many, so there may be better.) I came by some C++ links that are helpful.
The Top 20 C++ Tips of All Time
I’ve always wondered the difference between “const int *pointer” and “const int * const pointer”, the second link gave insight. Not that it matters, I”ve been using it correctly since I started.
Site Bugs
Just noticed a few bugs in the website, pages appearing blank, etc. Will try to get around to fixing them soon
Cross-Platform Development Woes
I’ve been programming for over 10 years now, possibly longer if you include the BASIC years.
And one thing that I’ve always aimed for in cross platform development, so if I want to port my code over to another os, I would have to do very little to change things.
With my recent work I have been making a project compile for MacOS, Linux and Win32. And the only one that has given me problems is Windows.
I swear, Microsoft do things like this on purpose. Now essentially the way I see it, if I compile something in C/C++, any dependencies I have should be the ones I give it. However if I use MSVC++, I have to include a redistributable package with any of my code, and for the correct version I compiled it on. This caused many problems with my university work, I used 2008, they use 2005 and annoyingly they limit the access of all students, which is bad for programmers, we need to install things, most of the time we can just extract however, but not when it comes to a redist (not to mention they are using DirectX from the Summer of 2004), and whenever you plug in a XBox360 pad you can”t use it because you can”t install the drivers.
Anyways, got a little off topic there. Another annoyance of Visual Studio is bugs. Rather than have a update service that updates daily they have long awaited service packs. They released 2008 before they made a DirectX SDK to go with it, if the source was available we could have compiled our own.
Maybe I’m just becoming one of them Linux users in my old age, but there is something nice to the command prompt of bash. But I do love Visual Studio, just yesterday I found the class diagram generator again, haven’t seen that since VC6.
Makefiles are ingenius, but overly complex, and whats with the .a in linux for libraries, not to mention lib.a, most of the time after installing a library I have to do a search for what -l i have to add since it never tells you.
Just installed MinGW for Windows, so hopefully I can get the best of both worlds, like when I got VC++ to compile my DS project.
New Game Engine
I decided to start on a new game engine since the source code for DarKal has been broke for quite a while.
Taking on ideas and principals of software engineering and things I’ve seen in the Ogre3D engine, I’ve combined them into a nice new optimized engine for RPGs.
I’m thinking of creating my own scripting language to work with it as well, something object orientated, or at least styled in C format.
Last Piece of Coursework
The last piece of coursework for this semester was handed in finally, just a viva next thursday then I’ve got the summer to program with my friends for our game for release on Steam.
I’ve began planning a game engine and reading through the OpenGL Red Book, and an STL book for anything else that I don”t know
An amusing fact I recently discovered, 4chan.org /hr/ channel is good for find hi-resolution images for game textures.
Professor Layton and the Curious Village
Just started playing this game today and I”m already addicted, some of the puzzles are hard, some of them are just weird, like for example turn an alive dog made in matchsticks into a dead dog made in matchsticks.
The graphics are very nicely done as well, with lots of interaction with the style, though no 3D movement like in Hotel Dusk, though so far it has been quite linear, refusing to let you go somewhere because you need to talk to someone first, but its okay to stop and do puzzles on the way about everything, including the Town Clock.
Love puzzle games on the NDS, and I recommend this to anyone who liked that Hotel Dusk.