What did you do today?

[BirdofPrey]

Can't blame you, it often happen to me when playing Terraria or Minecraft in multiplayer.

Worst We did was Terraria, started around 19:00 .... Realised how much we poured when we saw the sun rising . I tend to enable time display now, when the game allows it.

I'm glad the last Windows 10 update added a clock to all taskbars

 

[IntoxicatedPuma]

The project I've been working on for the last year finally got announced.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/press..._WILL_BE_AVAILABLEFOR_DOWNLOAD_AUGUST_9th.php

 

[Phuncz]

Nice, congrats on that ! I hope it sells well and becomes a success for your studio !

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

The project I've been working on for the last year finally got announced.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/press..._WILL_BE_AVAILABLEFOR_DOWNLOAD_AUGUST_9th.php

Awesome ! That's always an achievement to see your work being released.

 

[IntoxicatedPuma]

Seems the responses from gaming websites has been pretty positive so far. We tried to keep as much as we could from the XBLA version that was so popular so we will see how it sells. A big bonus at the end of the year would be nice, I can buy a car then!

 

[EdZ]

Congrats!

bonus

Having bonuses would be nice. Can I come and work with you? Doing anything with VR?

 

[IntoxicatedPuma]

Congrats!

Having bonuses would be nice. Can I come and work with you? Doing anything with VR?

No VR yet in our studio but I was telling our producer it absolutely must be on the list for our next project. The problem is most think it's some kind of wizardry and is hard to implement, but I think for more basic games it shouldn't require too much work.

Chengdu is always welcome to people looking for work! If you see the pictures I posted from the other day, that's just a small portion of the city and very far from the downtown. That should give you an idea of how booming this place is.

 

[EdZ]

No VR yet in our studio but I was telling our producer it absolutely must be on the list for our next project. The problem is most think it's some kind of wizardry and is hard to implement, but I think for more basic games it shouldn't require too much work.

Chengdu is always welcome to people looking for work! If you see the pictures I posted from the other day, that's just a small portion of the city and very far from the downtown. That should give you an idea of how booming this place is.

Implementing the functionality is indeed not too difficult, with Unity and Unreal both having most of it built in already. The hard part is changing how a game is designed, pretty much from the start, to work well in VR (retrofitting VR to a game successfully is the exception rather than the rule). And finding funding for it (as the VR install base is still pretty tiny).

 

[IntoxicatedPuma]

I still think for the near future, mainstream VR focus should be on mobile. VR for PC is great for simulators but can't see it's use for too much else. PS4 VR makes no sense at all to me.

Fortunately we use Unity so I am hoping we can implement VR in the near future for some projects.

 

[EdZ]

PSVR fits in perfectly between PC VR and mobile VR: about the same total buy-in cost as a Galaxy S7 + GearVR (if you dont already own the phone, or don't already own the console), but vastly more capable in terms of performance and tracking. GearVR install base looks to approach 5m by the end of the year, the PS4 already has an install base of 40m. While the PSVR probably won't reach 10% by the end of 2016, it will likely be far more than the few hundred thousand of the Rift and Vive. But compared to mobile, average game price for console and PC is easily an order of magnitude more.
If PSVR can reach mobile volunteers at PC prices, it could end up as the preferred VR target platform.

 

[IntoxicatedPuma]

I'm suspicious about people wanting to put a headset on in the middle of their living room though. I think our compliance team told me the PS4 VR has its own processor built inside so it sounds like it can run on its own, but now I wonder if it's really that much more powerful than say a Galaxy S7 + gearVR.

Guess I should read up on it more

 

[BirdofPrey]

What's wrong with using a headset in your living room?

 

[EdZ]

I'm suspicious about people wanting to put a headset on in the middle of their living room though. I think our compliance team told me the PS4 VR has its own processor built inside so it sounds like it can run on its own, but now I wonder if it's really that much more powerful than say a Galaxy S7 + gearVR.

The PSVR cannot run on it's own, all the computation is performed by the PS4. It connects via what's confusingly called a 'processing box', the purpose of which is unpacking HDMI frames in order for the PS4 to drive both the PSVR and an external TV at the same time with different images on each, using only the single HDMI port the PS4 has available.
In terms of graphical power, a rough comparison would be in floating-point performance: 1.8 Tflops for the PS4, 0.5 Tflops for the Adreno 530 in the Galaxy S7 (Snapdragon 820 variant) and 0.26 Tflops for the Mali-T880 MP12 (Exynos 8890 variant). ~4x to ~8x as fast, with a faster CPU and more and faster RAM available too. The 'PS4K'/'PS4 Neo' will increase this gap further, though future phones will progressively narrow it, limited mostly by battery life.

There may be some resistance to use of a HMD in a social setting (though smartphones proliferated in short order from being antisocial to being the norm), but there are already several games like "Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes" with asymmetric gameplay, involving players both wearing a HMD and not playing the same game together. This is in addition to multilayer with other HMD users in different physical locations - e.g. the Oculus Touch "Toybox" demo - where a remote player can feel physically present near you, even when they are not, to the point they are socially recognisable.

 

[Phuncz]

What's wrong with using a headset in your living room?

I'd personally think many couches with high back support would severely limit the motion of the neck or atleast make it more difficult, which is an important part of the VR aspect for most games.

 

[IntoxicatedPuma]

I am not sure how I would feel with cables running across my living room while I sit on the couch, and being in a social setting but unable to interact with it is a little unnerving. For me the phone VR is appealing not because of games, but every other type of media content.

 

[jØrd]

So ive spent the last few days playing w/ my spare RTL-SDR to decode pagers. Today i think i've got it worked out to strip out the majority of the automated messages that come through, or at least the ones that repeat enough to clutter up my output.
Below is a chunk of what i picked up tonight

POCSAG1200: Address:  [REDACTED] Function: 2  Alpha:   (82) Hey [REDACTED], I have [REDACTED] here to see yourself and [REDACTED] <NUL><NUL>
POCSAG512: Address:  [REDACTED] Function: 2  Alpha:   97 Subj: Gen Shutdown, Msg: microSpider2 at JO B31 Generator Generator is Shutdown Generated by Alarm: 2 (Gen Shutdown)
POCSAG512: Address:  [REDACTED] Function: 2  Alpha:   21-17:10-01 SERVICE: Name: [REDACTED], Ph: [REDACTED], Message: RE LOCK PROGAMMING PLS PH<NUL><NUL>
POCSAG1200: Address:  [REDACTED] Function: 2  Alpha:   (78) MET CALL 4WB BED 52 GEN MED D
POCSAG1200: Address:  [REDACTED] Function: 2  Alpha:   G1-FIRE STR DELANEYS CREEK 1P, 2 RURALS ONSITE BRICK STR DESTROYED BY FIRE-NOW OUT. QPS DECLARED CRIME SCENE. DMO, INSP MAY & RFSQ MGR NOTIFIED. F/COM BNE
POCSAG512: Address:  [REDACTED] Function: 2  Alpha:   21-17:53-02 UNLISTED: Name: [REDACTED], Ph: [REDACTED], Message: [REDACTED]: PLS PH WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK TO [REDACTED]OF IT.
POCSAG512: Address:  [REDACTED] Function: 2  Alpha:   FROM: SEQMON slide_header() MESS: IO error = 8000 on input buffer
POCSAG1200: Address:  [REDACTED] Function: 2  Alpha:   RESPOND BLUE PAEDS BIRTHING ROOM 5 --[REDACTED]<NUL><NUL>
POCSAG1200: Address:  [REDACTED] Function: 2  Alpha:   RESPOND BLUE STAND DOWN BIRTHING R5 --[REDACTED]<NUL>
POCSAG1200: Address:  [REDACTED] Function: 2  Alpha:   R3G3 - FYI ONLY - CAR INTO TREE - 1 PATIENT WITH SEVERE BURNS - ARMY CHOPPER CREW REMOVED PATIENT FROM VEHICLE - QFES WITH ARMY TO STABILISE PATIENT - SWR
POCSAG1200: Address:  [REDACTED] Function: 2  Alpha:   62 PLEASE CHECK ALL PHONE LINES ON D1234 R888
POCSAG1200: Address:  [REDACTED] Function: 2  Alpha:   Hi, pls call [REDACTED] re [REDACTED] BP. 51243-- [REDACTED]

Now ive worked out how to do this i think i'll be moving onto other projects, Im not sure the people / machines sending alot of these messages ever intended them for public consumption / any moron w/ a DVB-T stick to read

 

[Phuncz]

Nice hacking, I hope you won't get into trouble with this. Is there a way they could track you doing this ?

 

[iFreilicht]

I'm glad the last Windows 10 update added a clock to all taskbars

Wait, the anniversary update is out already? I want that feature real bad, but I'm not seeing anything in WU other than a definition update for Defender. Or are you in one of the Windows Insider rings?

 

[jØrd]

Nice hacking, I hope you won't get into trouble with this. Is there a way they could track you doing this ?

I'm fairly sure the answer is no on both counts but i haven't looked into it too deeply. Partly because it isn't a project i plan to run on an ongoing basis (its already been torn down) and partly because my govt suck at publishing the relevant legalize pertaining to this sort of thing anywhere i could find it.

 

[BirdofPrey]

Wait, the anniversary update is out already? I want that feature real bad, but I'm not seeing anything in WU other than a definition update for Defender. Or are you in one of the Windows Insider rings?

I was under the impression it was out already, but, yes, I am an insider, so I've had all that stuff for a while now, and it's pretty nice stuff to have. I'm currently on the slow ring.

After they added memory compression some time back, though, I keep hoping we might eventually see native drive caching (I know that many SSD manufacturers, recent Intel chipsets and some third party software companies have solutions, but I feel that's the sort of thing that benefits from being baked into the OS's native file management system). Both for SSDs caching HDDs and even caching frequently used network files (sharing center lets you manually make local copies, but automating that stuff is great too), and I'm miffed that having an SSD disables the system Windows uses to cache frequently used software libraries in RAM (because, according to MS, SSDs are fast enough you don't need them; never mind the fact actually trying to use it on an HDD makes for godawfully long boot times)