Monthly Archives: March 2012

The story of microsleep, followup

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Scali

After I wrote the blog on microsleep, my interest in the issue was rekindled. This passage was very much out-of-character for me: When you have two or more windows each trying to render as quickly as possible, it seems that … Continue reading →

Posted in Direct3D, Software development | Tagged cpu core, efficient solution, GUI, message loop, microsecond, multithread, performance, possible solution, renderer, Sleep, software, technology, usleep, Windows | 2 Comments

The story of microsleep

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Scali

It is time for a more hands-on post again. This time I am even going to give you some actual source code to play with! The issue I want to discuss today, is the issue of multithreaded GUIs. For the project … Continue reading →

Posted in Direct3D, Software development | Tagged cpu core, GUI, message loop, microsecond, multithread, performance, renderer, Sleep, usleep, Windows | 8 Comments

nVidia’s new GeForce GTX680: You win some, you lose some?

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Scali

Today, nVidia has introduced the first of its new 600-series of videocards, based on the new Kepler architecture (as opposed to the Fermi architecture used in the 400- and 500-series). All the major review sites are putting up their reviews … Continue reading →

Posted in Hardware news | Tagged 7970, AMD, computer, D3D, D3D11, Direct3D, DirectX, DX11, gaming, geforce, GPU, GTX580, GTX680, nvidia, nvidia geforce, OpenGL, peak throughput, performance, Radeon, technology | 4 Comments

Triton’s Crystal Dream restored and preserved for posterity

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Scali

As I mentioned earlier, I have fixed the Sound Blaster routines for Crystal Dream by Triton. I have made a video capture of it playing on my 486DX2-80, with Sound Blaster Pro: In a way it feels like restoring an … Continue reading →

Posted in Oldskool/retro programming, Software development | Tagged ASM, bug, Crystal Dream, demo, demo effects, demoscene, disassemble, EGA, fix, oldskool, PC, pc demo scene, RE, reverse engineer, SB, scene, software, Sound Blaster, space pigs, technology, Triton, VGA, x86 | 20 Comments

My most ‘DailyWTF’ moment?

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Scali

I’d like to tell a little anecdote, something that happened a few years ago. Things went wrong in so many ways… Let me try to paint the situation here: A large worldwide company, with development centers around the world (in … Continue reading →

Posted in Direct3D, OpenGL, Software development | Tagged Agile, Agile Development, bug, Build Server, chief architect, concurrency, DailyWTF, Git, multithreading, optimize, Ruby, snafu | 5 Comments

Oldskool demo fixing

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Scali

While I was doing the oldskool PC stuff, the demo Crystal Dream by Triton was one of my inspirations: It’s one of the first demos ever to have smooth polygons on PC, and great mod-based music. It uses the same … Continue reading →

Posted in Oldskool/retro programming, Software development | Tagged ASM, bug, Crystal Dream, demo, demoscene, disassemble, EGA, fix, oldskool, PC, RE, reverse engineer, SB, scene, software, Sound Blaster, technology, Triton, VGA, x86 | 6 Comments

Scali’s guide to joyful programming

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Scali

Another fun piece that I wrote quite a while ago. I think most of it still applies today, although Java has long been replaced by C#. Then again, as the languages are so similar, you can just replace ‘Java’ with … Continue reading →

Posted in Software development | Tagged ASM, assembly, C, efficient, high level language, Java, learning, optimize, programming, programming models, software-development, tutorial, types of programming languages | Leave a comment

Ivy Bridge: Intel goes 22 nm and DirectX 11

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Scali

Today we can see a preview of Intel’s upcoming Ivy Bridge at Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5626/ivy-bridge-preview-core-i7-3770k Once again, Intel has pulled off the seemingly impossible: they increased the IPC of the Core i7 series. They have also made the turbo more aggressive … Continue reading →

Posted in Direct3D, Hardware news | Tagged 22 nm, computer, Core i7, DirectCompute, DirectX 11, gaming, graphics performance, Intel, IPC, Ivy Bridge, lower power consumption, performance intel, technology, Turbo | 13 Comments

Legacy Catalyst driver problems with OpenGL, AMD replies

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Scali

Right, I’ve told you about the issues with the AMD legacy driver. I also reported the issue to AMD technical support. I’m surprised they replied at all, but let’s go through their reply step-by-step, as it’s quite a good one: Thank … Continue reading →

Posted in Hardware news, OpenGL, Software development, Software news | Tagged AMD, ATi, aticfx32.dll, atioglxx.dll, bug, Catalyst, driver, failure, legacy, OpenGL, problem, Radeon | 10 Comments

Legacy Catalyst driver problems with OpenGL

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Scali

Because of the work I have done on the iOS and Android renderers, my OpenGL engine had to stop being dependent on GLUT. This was a good thing anyway, since GLUT is outdated, and no longer maintained, and has various … Continue reading →

Posted in Hardware news, OpenGL, Software development, Software news | Tagged AMD, ATi, aticfx32.dll, atioglxx.dll, bug, Catalyst, driver, failure, legacy, OpenGL, problem, Radeon | 12 Comments

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