The Underscore Archives

On 02/05/07, Richard Davey <rich at corephp.co.uk> wrote:
>
> I disagree, the application of 3D technology (read: 3D GPUs) does not
> have to equate to games with a 3D perspective. The two things are not
> joined at the hip and haven't been since the mid 90s. As you know, GPUs
> today are about raw grunt horse power, about shifting pixels like
> they're going out of fashion, hell even to the point of multi-GPU cards
> processing physics calculations on one and vertices on the other - and
> *nothing* truly links that raw power into the web yet, in any real form
> at all.


Ah, it wasn't clear that you were after the computational power which access
to the 3D APIs would give you.  I can see that being relevant to casual
games, i.e. things like Armadillo Run, Blast Miner, etc.

Which is why things like Second Life have to exist as desktop apps, when
> their very heart is online and their very content could be web driven
> (Disclaimer: I don't "play" SL, but I appreciate what is has achieved.)


I'm not deliberately being a troll here (lotta love for you, Richy!) but
moving SL online would only serve to encourage a few more dabblers, who're
too intimidated/confused by the software download to try the thing
otherwise.  Again, SL would fall into the non-casual bracket because it
requires perseverance to get into and stick with.

If that's not a missed trick, especially given that it's a part of WPF
> already, then I don't know what is. Instead we get videos and vectors.
> Christ, wake me up when something interesting comes along. Please!
>

*nudge*  I think we may ultimately be at crossed purposes; Silverlight has
been designed as a traditional application framework for the web.  I doubt
there's much to stop MS extending it to offer more diverse capabilities once
the technology begins to mature.  Nor am I ignorant of the fact that, in
their perfect dream, MS wants everyone gaming on their platforms at all
times.

- Pete F.

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"Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't
mean it's useless."

- Thomas A. Edison
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