Is there a better path?

There are few things capable of reminding us the meaning of the word “life” like a thing that happens in a way completely different than the way we expected it to behave. Seems like life is only noticed when things go wrong.

If this is a true statement, we are living a computer’s life like never before. Things are terribly out their places.

Back in the eighties, only scientists where concerned about computer performance in a whole. The computers where almost the same, and the games and applications runned just fine in all of them. The game runned fine, no matter in what Apple II, ZX Spectrum or TRS-80 computer. In fact, we had a strong belief at that time - a belief that when computers get into real performance, like the one we have today, the last thing we would mind was about performance itself. After all, if I could run my nice games in a 3mhz computer, in a 300mhz one there is nothing capable of slowing it down, no matter how hummongous is the game or application. Seems like a logical thinking, except for the forgotten element in the formula: human stupidity.

Today, the applications are so damn bad written that they are capable of making even a Cray supercomputer gasp while running them. The codes are so badly optimized that cyclic events and conditionals turns the whole system into a two thousand dollars waiting-state-machine. There are games that makes a Pentium III 500 packed with a Voodoo3 fall in it’s knees while trying to provide the frame-rate required to a decent experience, and all that for a mediocre visual feeling in the end, allied to a complete lack of playability.

The worse thing about that it’s that damn feeling that you have something setted-up wrongly in your system. The game simply can’t run that way! Immediately, a download-crusade starts in the hunt of newer drivers, Bios upgrades and tips about how to configure you system’s Bios. Even an overclock come in mind - maybe you need it. Or in the case you already have it, maybe it’s beginning to damage the processors...

Let’s take, for example, EA’s Nascar Revolution and face it with, say, Motorhead. While Motorhead are capable of amazing everyone with soberb graphics and incredible frame rates in a simple Pentium 200 equipped with a Voodoo1, Nascar Revolution refuses to deliver decent frame rates in a K6-II 350 packed with a Voodoo3. And in the end, if you compare a snapshot from both, Motorhead looks prettier. In the other hand, we have Quake III Arena, a vivid proof that serious programmers and gamers still live in this planet. With amazing speed, it delivers playability and, most of all, never-before-seen graphics. It even manages to support dual-processing, a simple thing that even Windows 98 don’t provide, among other things.

The main reason of all that is simple. As always, the guilty one is greed. In the past, when computers and softwares lived in peace delivering all that could be delivered out of slow processors, a discovery and love for the thing drove the whole process - programmers did it because they liked to. Today, what rules the making of software and machines are marketing, sales, profit. Back in the eighties, programs where known worldwide by their achievements and by the name of whom builds them. Today, they are known by brand and versions. This is most noticed on utilities, applications and operational systems than in games. But games suffer from that too.

This practice leads to complex teams working in a single project without a heart, following a schedule that must be fulfilled at any cost. When it’s time to ship, it ships. If there is a great idea missed only by some lines of code and one or two days, it’s missed forever. This process is so violent, that today games are being sold with major and incredible bugs, with huge patches released only a few hours after the title’s official launch. Note this: patches fix horribly wrong mistakes - the ones everyone sees. Few or simply no one patches a game for better algorithms or faster performance. After all, if the game runs slow, it’s obviously time for an upgrade, right?

There is nothing wrong with constant processor advancements and upgrades. The faster they get, the better for everyone. What is wrong is to know that your system is slow while it could be fast if a decent code was being executed on it. Wrong is the feeling that your computer is badly setted-up while it is, in fact, fine-tuned.

The light in the end of tunnel is there, anyway. Sooner than we all expect, we will be able to see marketing against passion in a single scene. When games begin to be ported to Linux, things will clear up. Even with bad code on their souls, an optimized system will help to show how much power is being wasted by redundancy. And when finally, Quake III Arena get it’s way to Linux, Redmond will shake. It’s easy to discuss about network performance, since it’s so transcendentalism-dependant. But when things come down to raw 3D driver power allied to CPU floating point turned into vertex through the system’s software devices, it will be very hard to deny that a system built by programmers who did it with the clear objective of archiving a clean and fast code open to everyone else to judge by themselves, are far superior to Windows, built to simply run the way it wants to.

This is the whole point behind true computation and games - community. When one forget it, it misses the whole point. The best games of all times, 3D or not, where such because one friend recommended to another and a community grew around the title. And the thing works just like that with the hardware. And most of all, their programmer was a gamer, not a market-head.

Another major mistake nowadays, is the belief that users are a legion of morons. Even if they were morons, their leaders and gurus are not. And their advises are followed, be sure. For example, if there is a way of turning v-sync on and off, let the user turn it on and off by default. Don’t hide it, because it will be found anyway and when it happens, the user will take the producer of the drivers by a fool. There are no one able to decide what’s better for a system than it’s owner, and insisting in hiding it, taking the need of more programs to be installed to enable features, just make the whole system slower and the user’s net bill bigger.

Total control in the hands of the user allied with software production aimed to work and not to simply sell fast, is the master formula of real lasting success. EA might be the bigger one, but Id and Blizzard are the real stars. If there comes a time when the user needs to take one or another, the choice will be plain easy.

So, if your system isn’t running like you think it should, scream like hell with the responsible for this and pressure them to make things better. If you have too, send the thing back and ask for refund. Be sure they can do it better if they have to - by marketing reasons and for own survival. Make your voice heard through the net - our free shard, and make others advised of your problems, so they will make you aware of theirs. This way, only the good things will survive, and never again a soul will be sorry for buying a Trident board whose box claimed it was 10 times faster than a Voodoo2 for half the price. And most of all, ask people all around in the search of the full understanding of your computer’s functioning. Only this way you will be able to master the situation and drive your future upgrades toward machines that will last a good time for a reasonable price.

And above it all, don’t believe the hype. Do your own hype and share it. That’s the only way to advance. Otherwise, we will be all cattle lost in the midst.

Copyright 1999 - All rights reserved Hilbert Hagedoorn