Is there going to be a review of TEK soon ?
Are there any reviews out there on the web ?

Cheers,

Max

Rob.

Saying that, if you DO get positive feedback, then go out and buy it! The bugs won't let me progress far in the game but it has a lot of potential and the others seem to think the later levels are really good!

Enjoy.

- Jason

However, if you have new bugs or infos that might help tracking them, then do not hesitate to send them to us.

Cheers,
Jan

Do we have to blame Neo2 or Neo3 Mr Rich?

On balance I'm very glad I got this, so it must be good. . Any chance of a campaign designer set, Jan?

The graphics look fantastic!

I notice you didn't defend the AI : "But its my best mate"... "They've got lovely personalities"...

Come on Toby this is one graphics artist who has obviously worked really hard. Don't forget that similar PC titles have several graphics artists and several programmers. To me the graphics are one of the best parts of the game.

Thanks - it did take me a while and ate up a fair bit of spare time. Working in 256 colours also added a lot more problems from the artistic point of view - and don't talk to me about lack of alpha blending !

Oh - and all for nothing ;-)

Max

I don't think I've successfully transmitted my points.
I specifically wasn't saying that the graphics were poor. You can find in my last two messages phrases like:

<re. noticing the graphics>

...This isn't a fault of the game. ...

...'only' 256 colours...

And yes, the actual graphics are very nice.

What I meant was that regardless of the quality of the bitmaps (which is very high), the first impression (of a PC user) was of low colour resolution and no alpha-blending.
These are engine constraints - and as I implied, this is a compromise given the systems ability.
[Virtually] all PC games nowadays assume access to very powerful graphics cards, which can draw textured, alpha-blended etc. polygons really well.
This means that they relieve the processor of the burden of drawing graphics, and alpha-blending can be done 'for free'. Whereas on the RiscPC it would slow the plotting down immensely. So the programmers of TEK presumably made the sensible decision to provide a higher frame-rate without high colour and alpha-blending. Nothing wrong with that, and no aspersions cast on the graphics artist (the reverse in fact - Max, I do appreciate your effort and don't hold you responsible for drawing a 1 pixel black bullet ).

just a slight tangent here..
I'm personally not entirely swayed by graphics cards. While they do allow PCs to produce good-looking games, they do now all look a bit samey. Ideally I think there would be just a lot more power in the CPU (or multiple processing units), so that the programmer could use whatever plotting style was most appropriate, or use the processing for something else. I hope this is the way things will eventually go, so that games can have unique looks again.

Finally, to be brutally honest, I think you fellas could all read between the lines a little less and the lines themselves a little more.

and still noone defends the AI ;-)

just a slight tangent here..
I'm personally not entirely swayed by graphics cards. While they do allow PCs to produce good-looking games, they do now all look a bit samey. Ideally I think there would be just a lot more power in the CPU (or multiple processing units), so that the programmer could use whatever plotting style was most appropriate, or use the processing for something else. I hope this is the way things will eventually go, so that games can have unique looks again.

Continuing slightly off topic I think it's worth bearing in mind that a lot of this came about with the first generation of cards that could do transformation and lighting. At this point every game running on the same card would give similar effects because they were constrained by the parameters used by the card to construct the pipeline.

With the advent of vertex and pixel shaders in DirectX 8 developers now have pretty much full control of the full rendering process so, if they make use of it, this phenomeon should slowly disappear.

It's also worth remembering that many PC games are written using a relatively select subset of game engines because it's often too costly to create both an engine and in depth game.

...because the AI surely has some shortcomings. But in my personal opinion they are mainly found in the "low level" part, i.e. how clever do the units move around obstacles or how good do they look when attacking a hostile unit. The units are not generally "dumb" (they help allies that are close by and are attacked, the find their way around almost any obstacle in almost any situation - unless they block each other, but they also try to move out of each other's way), but of course they could do things better in certain situations.
By the way, we are close to releasing "patch 3" which will probably also improve the AI a bit.

But you see they are 'only' 256 colours and not blended.
This really doesn't bother me (except for the invisible little bullets - which is really another point entirely ) but the point is that this would be considered archaic on the PC.. 'Cos they just splat it all to the graphics card and it does it for free.
As I said, I'm not complaining, I can just see why at first glance it looks out-of-date.
And yes, the actual graphics are very nice.

I didn't defend the Delai Lama but that doesn't say I don't like him
Just addressing one point that's all.
Didn't find anything wrong with the gfx at all even the explosions..

"and still noone defends the AI ;-)"
...because the AI surely has some shortcomings. But in my personal opinion they are mainly found in the "low level" part, i.e. how clever do the units move around obstacles or how good do they look when attacking a hostile unit. The units are not generally "dumb" (they help allies that are close by and are attacked, the find their way around almost any obstacle in almost any situation - unless they block each other, but they also try to move out of each other's way), but of course they could do things better in certain situations.
By the way, we are close to releasing "patch 3" which will probably also improve the AI a bit.

Continuing slightly off topic I think it's worth bearing in mind that a lot of this came about with the first generation of cards that could do transformation and lighting. At this point every game running on the same card would give similar effects because they were constrained by the parameters used by the card to construct the pipeline.

With the advent of vertex and pixel shaders in DirectX 8 developers now have pretty much full control of the full rendering process so, if they make use of it, this phenomeon should slowly disappear.

<snip>

"and still noone defends the AI ;-)"

...because the AI surely has some shortcomings. But in my personal opinion they are mainly found in the "low level" part, i.e. how clever do the units move around obstacles or how good do they look when attacking a hostile unit. The units are not generally "dumb" (they help allies that are close by and are attacked, the find their way around almost any obstacle in almost any situation - unless they block each other, but they also try to move out of each other's way), but of course they could do things better in certain situations.

By the way, we are close to releasing "patch 3" which will probably also improve the AI a bit.

This is all true... but it really only proves my point. To some extent new cards (with programmable features) fix the problem, but still they will not be perfectly adaptable - still based around drawing polygons for example. OK so some cards may allow certain types of curved surface etc - but not other surfaces, or non-surfaces.
Link: - cycle of reincarnation

It's an interesting argument but it seems to miss a few points

1) One of the main benefits of off-loading to the graphics card is that it executes in parallel. In general CPUs execute code serially and there probably isn't a processor available that both run the game and render the graphics.

2) Graphics processors (as with most specialist chips, ie FPAs, other DSPs) perform relatively restricted tasks. While it's true that FPAs tend to be placed on the same silicon as the main CPU I'd bet that they're still developed as a separate block. The new GPU's may be programmable, but they're only programmable within the specification of something like DirectX 8. I'd be surprised if you could run a general purpose app on one without considerable effort.

Since I've been swayed by the risc argument I just champion the CPU. And I favour diversity in games, so I'm up for the most adaptable option.
and just think of all that processing power :-)

<snip>

But the RISC viewpoint is that you have a processor do one thing only, and do it very well, which is what the ARM does. The argument you linked to favours the Pentium approach with everything on one chip.

If anything the RISC viewpoint should be championing the opposite to the link you gave. Lots of small, dedicated processors that do relatively restricted tasks, run fast and consume little power. Ideally the processor cores should be embedded into devices to control deedicated processors which, if you think about it, is precisely what ARM does.

<snip my text>

It's an interesting argument but it seems to miss a few points

1) One of the main benefits of off-loading to the graphics card is that it executes in parallel. In general CPUs execute code serially and there probably isn't a processor available that both run the game and render the graphics.

So I'm basically suggesting replacing
CPU > GPU > screen
with
PU(s) > PU(s) > screen
If the processing units are generalised, and fairly symmetrical, then one could choose the optimum pathway for the task in hand.
Need more graphical grunt? use a larger proportion of your chips to do that. Want more processing power? Take them.

2) Graphics processors (as with most specialist chips, ie FPAs, other DSPs) perform relatively restricted tasks. While it's true that FPAs tend to be placed on the same silicon as the main CPU I'd bet that they're still developed as a separate block. The new GPU's may be programmable, but they're only programmable within the specification of something like DirectX 8. I'd be surprised if you could run a general purpose app on one without considerable effort.

Since I've been swayed by the risc argument I just champion the CPU. And I favour diversity in games, so I'm up for the most adaptable option.
and just think of all that processing power :-)

But the RISC viewpoint is that you have a processor do one thing only, and do it very well, which is what the ARM does. The argument you linked to favours the Pentium approach with everything on one chip.

I'm suprised you say that about the ARM - it is Turing complete!

If anything the RISC viewpoint should be championing the opposite to the link you gave. Lots of small, dedicated processors that do relatively restricted tasks, run fast and consume little power. Ideally the processor cores should be embedded into devices to control deedicated processors which, if you think about it, is precisely what ARM does.

Hmm, well I disagree with your diagnosis..
So you want bitmaps? Take this hardware sprite controller.
Want to do NURBS? You need a NURBS chip.
Want transparancy? here is a blending module
Like voxels? This'll do it
Oh you want a specialised version of voxels?
You'll need that as well.
...

OK so I'm being facetious, but the point is that there are many interesting ways of managing the visual display (and other outputs).
If you want every game to use (as currently) polys manipulated in the same sort of ways, you'd be right that a specialised GPU would be the way to go (and it would be part of the RISC philosopy in that case too). But if, like me, you want to see games doing different things in different ways, then I suggest that the generalised processing route is best.

If anything the RISC viewpoint should be championing the opposite to the link you gave. Lots of small, dedicated processors that do relatively restricted tasks, run fast and consume little power. Ideally the processor cores should be embedded into devices to control deedicated processors which, if you think about it, is precisely what ARM does.

Shame the Hydra from Simtex was abandoned. A great, great shame in fact.

This would enable multi-threading in games and the OS to some degree wouldn't it?

[Edited by andreww at 16:42, 8/7/2002]

Heh, maybe we should take this elsewhere?

Maybe

To take your last point first, this is not a problem if the chipset is powerful enough. You seem to have missed my reference to multiple processing units running in parallel.

I certainly did, and I apologise for missing that point

I may be mistaken, but for the same amount of silicon etc. dedicated to the GPU on a PC, one could get quite a few ARM chips.
So one could dedicate, say, one ARM chip to render each 1/16th of the screen, and have them all working in parallel - with one or more ARM chips doing the other game code.

True, although ultimate throughput would be limited by access contention on the memory itself.

Actually IIRC the PowerVR chipset does what you're suggesting, just in a dedicated GPU.

So I'm basically suggesting replacing
CPU > GPU > screen
with
PU(s) > PU(s) > screen
If the processing units are generalised, and fairly symmetrical, then one could choose the optimum pathway for the task in hand.
Need more graphical grunt? use a larger proportion of your chips to do that. Want more processing power? Take them.

So you get the best of both worlds?

It is?
I'd have said it was to have the minimum number of maximally useful instructions, which can therefore be (hardware)optimised to go as fast as possible.
The CISC approach being to have an instruction for anything which might conceivably come in useful someday.

I'm suprised you say that about the ARM - it is Turing complete!

Methinks I've got my wires crossed.

OK so I'm being facetious,

Actually I think you're raising a fair point about the way the computing industry has progressed.

If you want every game to use (as currently) polys manipulated in the same sort of ways, you'd be right that a specialised GPU would be the way to go (and it would be part of the RISC philosopy in that case too). But if, like me, you want to see games doing different things in different ways, then I suggest that the generalised processing route is best.

I guess what it comes down to is that most people seem to want the kinds of games current GPU's are good for (or rather developers write them precisely because they're the kinds of games the GPUs are good for).

I can't argue with your points - I'll think before opening my mouth next time

Shame the Hydra from Simtex was abandoned. A great, great shame in fact.

This would enable multi-threading in games and the OS to some degree wouldn't it?

Hardware doesn't automatically allow multithreading - the OS has to be able to manage the processor resources available properly. Hydra would not have allowed multithreading in RISC OS without proper support from RISC OS itself. IIRC Simtec created an API for programming Hydra directly. They also created a multithreading module that was never completed (or at least the version I've got wasn't).

To take your last point first, this is not a problem if the chipset is powerful enough. You seem to have missed my reference to multiple processing units running in parallel.

I certainly did, and I apologise for missing that point

To be fair I didn't labour the point, and in many ways it would be preferable to have a single processing unit, however it would need to be awfully fast.

I may be mistaken, but for the same amount of silicon etc. dedicated to the GPU on a PC, one could get quite a few ARM chips.
So one could dedicate, say, one ARM chip to render each 1/16th of the screen, and have them all working in parallel - with one or more ARM chips doing the other game code.

True, although ultimate throughput would be limited by access contention on the memory itself.

Actually IIRC the PowerVR chipset does what you're suggesting, just in a dedicated GPU.

<grin> I knew this - it is what made me think it was feasible.
It occurred to me that it could be a bit more flexible though - at the cost of adding a dedicated display chip (which would probably be necessary anyway). This could be programmed to request areas of memory in whatever pattern from the different processor units, and feed them to the screen as necessary. This might help multi-player modes, for instance.

...
If the processing units are generalised, and fairly symmetrical, then one could choose the optimum pathway for the task in hand.
...

So you get the best of both worlds?

Well, I suppose it is more that you can choose which world is most appropriate, but yes, that is the intention.

...

OK so I'm being facetious,

Actually I think you're raising a fair point about the way the computing industry has progressed.

Heh, maybe that would be a good way to replace the x86 architecture - use graphics cards as a trojan horse.
First, create a graphics card which is basically a clump of ARM chips. This must be either or both:
a) better than other graphics cards at poly plotting.
b) cheaper than other graphics cards.
Then write some games which do things impossible on dedicated graphics cards.
Keep on developing the ARM card to give it more and more power.
Then, have games which just use the x86 to bootstrap and do menial tasks. Release a program which obviates the need to learn or use x86, and promote games which just use the ARMs.
produce cheap computers/games machines without any legacy stuff, using cheap second hand and old x86 chips.
Congratulations, the x86 is now a digital appendix, and can safely be removed.

I can dream, can't I?

I guess what it comes down to is that most people seem to want the kinds of games current GPU's are good for (or rather developers write them precisely because they're the kinds of games the GPUs are good for).

I can't argue with your points - I'll think before opening my mouth next time

Memory access seems to be a bottle-neck on many systems. I'm somewhat constrained by having very little knowledge of hardware issues. But I've been thinking about it. If you give each processor its own area of memory it can use that without clashing with the others most of the time. There could also be shared areas of memory which any chip could use.

Then you'd be looking at optimising code so that it ran from each processor's local cache as much as possible.

Another possibility I've heard about is that there isn't a shared cache as such. Processors claim parts of the address range. When another processor wants to access a part of the address range it doesn't own it has to be updated from the processor that does.

If you have multiple processors apparently a major problem is getting them to communicate efficiently. Many supercomputers have lots of processors all wired up to each other, or have an internal messaging system. I'd hope neither of these would be necessary - I guess the idea is to try and get the chips working independently as far as possible. I think my cousin referred to this as trivial parallelism. Maybe this would be no bad thing - it might mean that programmers wouldn't worry too much about communication, and could optimise graphics etc more in isolation.

I remember doing a whole course on this at uni. Unfortunately I don't remember too much. There are many architectures in use, from straight buses that are snooped by the processors, which are fairly cheap but have limited scalability, upto complete cross buses where processors have direct links to every other processor. This is mega expensive. Another topology is a hypercube because it's easy to route messages between processors.

The problem isn't that far removed from event based architectures in software, either in a single process or across multiple processors (perhaps connected by networks). It just costs more in hardware.

<grin> I knew this - it is what made me think it was feasible.
It occurred to me that it could be a bit more flexible though - at the cost of adding a dedicated display chip (which would probably be necessary anyway). This could be programmed to request areas of memory in whatever pattern from the different processor units, and feed them to the screen as necessary. This might help multi-player modes, for instance.

Certainly on split screen games you could be looking at dedicating a processor to a single screen "split" although I'm not sure if this is your point.

*snip*

Heh, maybe that would be a good way to replace the x86 architecture - use graphics cards as a trojan horse.
First, create a graphics card which is basically a clump of ARM chips. This must be either or both:
a) better than other graphics cards at poly plotting.
b) cheaper than other graphics cards.
Then write some games which do things impossible on dedicated graphics cards.
Keep on developing the ARM card to give it more and more power.
Then, have games which just use the x86 to bootstrap and do menial tasks. Release a program which obviates the need to learn or use x86, and promote games which just use the ARMs.
produce cheap computers/games machines without any legacy stuff, using cheap second hand and old x86 chips.
Congratulations, the x86 is now a digital appendix, and can safely be removed.

I can dream, can't I?

Maybe we could ask Simtec to resurrect the "20Ghz RiscStation" project that was on the cover of AU a couple of years back.

Maybe both are true to some extent.
I remember in the early years of the Archimedes a lot of interesting games came out.
Zarch, Cataclysm, Spheres of Chaos...
and I remember thinking that now the power existed to make really innovative games - and thinking that the future would only improve. But now on the PC it seems that first-person-shooters and real-time-strategy (and racing and sports games which don't count ) are the only genres of any significance. And are tending aim for realism only.

Part of the problem is that games cost millions of pounds to produce. No one is going to write a risky, innovative, new game concept if they can get their money from "improving the realism" of their last driving game.

I also remember, a couple of years ago or so, talking about the 'look' of Jet Set Radio with a housemate. He said that he thought it looked just awful. So it seems for some people 'graphical realism' is everything.

...and playability means nothing, which is sad but also very true in many cases.