How graphic design got me a new computer!
by Matt Fairfax · 04/13/2001 (10:43 pm) · 9 comments
Well, I got myself an Intellimouse Optical today and I really like it! I have been wanting one for a while but just could never bring myself to buy one. However, my wife just got a new computer at work and it has an Intellimouse on it and it has been driving her crazy at home to not be able to use the wheel. So I went out and bought her an Intellimouse Optical to use but she hated the very stiff wheel on it so we traded (I had an old fashioned Intellimouse with a ball but it has a softer wheel). I have really been enjoying using it even though my fingers get confused with 4 buttons sometimes =)
My wife has been taking online courses b/c she wants to become a graphic designer. I had warned her that when she starts getting into some heavy design work, her computer (Celeron 333) was going to start feeling very slow. Well, yesterday and today she has been frustrated by the slowness of her computer and she wasn't hardly putting on the load she would be down the line a little, so she decided to get a new computer (a 1GHz Dell). Since she was in a computer buying mood she asked me if I wanted to get a new one also. So I took her up on the offer =) After looking at a couple of OEMs I decided I was better off building my own machine again (this'll be the 4th system I have assembled) so I could get exactly what I wanted. So I am getting a 1 GHz T-bird and a DDR motherboard. I am going to stick with my GeForce 2 GTS till I feel like getting a GF3. I went for some very high quality parts (within reason) so I am hoping this system will finally be stable (being a hardcore gamer and a game programmer tends to tax your system). I used to buy all of the cheapest components so I've never experienced a stable system. I am also going to be a lot more serious about cooling since I think this is causing the majority of the instability in my current system.
On the career front: I am going to be moving to Charlotte, NC soon so I am looking for jobs in that region. Haven't had any good leads yet but we will see.
I have been pondering the idea of trying out a unified rendering pipeline for my apps. What I mean is having a single place in the code that handles all of the rendering. Currently, I am letting each type of 3D object (model, terrain, sprites, ...) handle its own rendering in a Draw() function that gets called from the main game loop. This allows me to optimize each objects rendering for its specific needs but can lead to unpredictable results when on object enables something and another expects it to be disabled or vice versa. And disabling everything at the end of each objects Draw() and then enabling what it needs at the beginning can lead to costly state changes. What I have been pondering is what would the benefits of having all of the polys be rendered by a single function? I would lose some of the speedups I can get by allowing each object to optimize its rendering for its particular data but I might gain by reducing state changes and simplifying the rendering process. Anyway, I am going to run some tests of my ideas and see how it goes.
My wife has been taking online courses b/c she wants to become a graphic designer. I had warned her that when she starts getting into some heavy design work, her computer (Celeron 333) was going to start feeling very slow. Well, yesterday and today she has been frustrated by the slowness of her computer and she wasn't hardly putting on the load she would be down the line a little, so she decided to get a new computer (a 1GHz Dell). Since she was in a computer buying mood she asked me if I wanted to get a new one also. So I took her up on the offer =) After looking at a couple of OEMs I decided I was better off building my own machine again (this'll be the 4th system I have assembled) so I could get exactly what I wanted. So I am getting a 1 GHz T-bird and a DDR motherboard. I am going to stick with my GeForce 2 GTS till I feel like getting a GF3. I went for some very high quality parts (within reason) so I am hoping this system will finally be stable (being a hardcore gamer and a game programmer tends to tax your system). I used to buy all of the cheapest components so I've never experienced a stable system. I am also going to be a lot more serious about cooling since I think this is causing the majority of the instability in my current system.
On the career front: I am going to be moving to Charlotte, NC soon so I am looking for jobs in that region. Haven't had any good leads yet but we will see.
I have been pondering the idea of trying out a unified rendering pipeline for my apps. What I mean is having a single place in the code that handles all of the rendering. Currently, I am letting each type of 3D object (model, terrain, sprites, ...) handle its own rendering in a Draw() function that gets called from the main game loop. This allows me to optimize each objects rendering for its specific needs but can lead to unpredictable results when on object enables something and another expects it to be disabled or vice versa. And disabling everything at the end of each objects Draw() and then enabling what it needs at the beginning can lead to costly state changes. What I have been pondering is what would the benefits of having all of the polys be rendered by a single function? I would lose some of the speedups I can get by allowing each object to optimize its rendering for its particular data but I might gain by reducing state changes and simplifying the rendering process. Anyway, I am going to run some tests of my ideas and see how it goes.
About the author
I am a Game Designer at PopCap who has worked on PvZ Adventures, PvZ2, Peggle Blast, and Bejeweled Skies. I am an ex-GarageGames employee who helped ship TGE, TGEA, Torque 3D, and Constructor.
#2
Just kidding. :-)
I'm just biased due to a horrendous past experiences with AMD cpus... maybe their newest stuff is finally catching up.
04/14/2001 (8:51 am)
The words "AMD" and "stable" don't mesh very well. Also, you get what you pay for: cheap price = cheap cpu. Intel rulez and AMD droolz!Just kidding. :-)
I'm just biased due to a horrendous past experiences with AMD cpus... maybe their newest stuff is finally catching up.
#3
Anyway, Matt, your idea about unifying the rendering is a VERY good idea. Not only is it then simpler to replace the renderer (if you keep it seperated), but you WILL notice an increase in speed. If you make the renderer batch up calls into vertex buffers of around 1-4k or so. Also you can use instancing and other stuff.
Take a look at www.gamasutra.com and John Ratcliffe's talk on 3D T&L optimisation. Its weird, but 3D is actually getting EASIER if you ask me. Its much less about being clever with math, its more about being efficient on feeding it to the GPU and parallelisation.
Phil.
04/14/2001 (1:19 pm)
I have had some stability issues with my overclocked AMD until I relocated it to another room :)Anyway, Matt, your idea about unifying the rendering is a VERY good idea. Not only is it then simpler to replace the renderer (if you keep it seperated), but you WILL notice an increase in speed. If you make the renderer batch up calls into vertex buffers of around 1-4k or so. Also you can use instancing and other stuff.
Take a look at www.gamasutra.com and John Ratcliffe's talk on 3D T&L optimisation. Its weird, but 3D is actually getting EASIER if you ask me. Its much less about being clever with math, its more about being efficient on feeding it to the GPU and parallelisation.
Phil.
#4
04/14/2001 (6:51 pm)
Mathew- How much will you have invested in this machine? I just bought a 1.3GHz Dell, and I am extremely disappointed.
#5
Here is what I bought and the prices:
Asus A7M266 DDR motherboard ($185)
I have heard great things about the stability of this motherboard! Asus is known for building the best AMD motherboards. I have been very happy with my current Asus A7V.
AMD Thunderbird 1.0 GHz 266 FSB ($169)
The 1.2 GHz was $230 but 1.0 GHz is fast enough =)
256 Mb Samsung DDR PC2100 RAM ($155)
Window 2000 tends to eat up a lot of RAM and I have been disappointed with the amount of free physical memory with 128 Mb of RAM
Lian Li PC-60 Aluminum Case with 350 Watt PS ($233)
I decided to splurge on my case this time. This case has vents for 3 fans, rubber padding for sharp edges, thumb screws for everything including the PCI slots, and a cool silver finish. I don't plan to buy a new case for quite a long time =)
Tai-Sol CEK733092 Heatsink Fan ($20)
*Shrug* It was the best on the site.
All together with $28.65 for 2 to 3 day shipping this set me back $790 at http://www.monarchcomputer.com which was less than the $820+ I priced it out at a couple other sites.
I am going to use my Western Digital 20 Gb ATA66 7200 RPM drive (WD makes a really sweet hard drive), my Sound Blaster Live! Value (I use head phones so sound isn't a big deal), my Netgear Ethernet card (very dependable), and my Leadtek Winfast GeForce 2 GTS which altogether would be another $400 or so. If I were building it from scratch I would expect it to cost about $1300 and it would still run rings around the 1 GHz PIII Dell ($1450) my wife is getting b/c of the superior speed of the AMD cpu and getting twice the memory thoughput with DDR (memory is the bottleneck in most modern systems).
04/15/2001 (11:22 am)
Well, I am cobbling it together with some parts from my last system (Duron 700, 128 Mb PC133 RAM, GF2 GTS).Here is what I bought and the prices:
Asus A7M266 DDR motherboard ($185)
I have heard great things about the stability of this motherboard! Asus is known for building the best AMD motherboards. I have been very happy with my current Asus A7V.
AMD Thunderbird 1.0 GHz 266 FSB ($169)
The 1.2 GHz was $230 but 1.0 GHz is fast enough =)
256 Mb Samsung DDR PC2100 RAM ($155)
Window 2000 tends to eat up a lot of RAM and I have been disappointed with the amount of free physical memory with 128 Mb of RAM
Lian Li PC-60 Aluminum Case with 350 Watt PS ($233)
I decided to splurge on my case this time. This case has vents for 3 fans, rubber padding for sharp edges, thumb screws for everything including the PCI slots, and a cool silver finish. I don't plan to buy a new case for quite a long time =)
Tai-Sol CEK733092 Heatsink Fan ($20)
*Shrug* It was the best on the site.
All together with $28.65 for 2 to 3 day shipping this set me back $790 at http://www.monarchcomputer.com which was less than the $820+ I priced it out at a couple other sites.
I am going to use my Western Digital 20 Gb ATA66 7200 RPM drive (WD makes a really sweet hard drive), my Sound Blaster Live! Value (I use head phones so sound isn't a big deal), my Netgear Ethernet card (very dependable), and my Leadtek Winfast GeForce 2 GTS which altogether would be another $400 or so. If I were building it from scratch I would expect it to cost about $1300 and it would still run rings around the 1 GHz PIII Dell ($1450) my wife is getting b/c of the superior speed of the AMD cpu and getting twice the memory thoughput with DDR (memory is the bottleneck in most modern systems).
#6
I'd recommend as much ram as you can get (its sooo cheap right now).
That GTS was pretty pricy though. The MX would probably be better value if you were buying from scratch.
Phil.
04/15/2001 (12:22 pm)
Asus do some great mobo's. Its amazing the difference a really really good mobo can make to a system.I'd recommend as much ram as you can get (its sooo cheap right now).
That GTS was pretty pricy though. The MX would probably be better value if you were buying from scratch.
Phil.
#7
04/15/2001 (2:57 pm)
Oops, I meant that the GTS, HD, ethernet card, and SBLive! altogether is about $400. I already own all of those. I bought my GTS last August before the MX even existed. If I were buying now I would definitely get a MX ($83). I am going to get a GeForce 3 ($500) sometime soon but I haven't decided exactly when yet =)
#8
04/16/2001 (5:26 am)
Well, I went out Sat. Afternoon and bought a Thunderbird 1.0GHz. I settled for a KT133 chip-set to go with it. I'm considering this an 'interim' upgrade to last me about 8 months. I'll then decide whether to go Intel or not. I also put my order in for a Geforce3. At 350 UK pounds, it's a lot less than I expected:). Even without it, all my games are running a lot smoother with 1.0GHz(although QIII highest quality is about 10fps faster with 618 drv. compared to 650drv. on my GF256 DDR).
#9
04/16/2001 (9:12 am)
You might want to try the latest leaked drivers (11.01). A lot of people have gotten significant speedups with them. One warning though, I have heard that it blew up one person's computer but I think it mostly happened b/c they aren't as computer savvy as they thought. you can pick up the latest leaked drivers at www.reactorcritical.com 
Jonathan Whitehead
I was asking what DDR boards are available and which one are you going for?
I'm looking at upgrading this weekend.
Cheers
Jonathan