Search Results

Search found 6395 results on 256 pages for 'role playing'.

Page 154/256 | < Previous Page | 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161  | Next Page >

  • What could be causing frequent display freezes?

    - by austen
    I just installed Ubuntu 14.04 two days ago (coming from Win8) and in the two days that I've been using it, my display has frozen four or five times. The mouse won't move but the keyboard does respond so I can use the Ctrl+Alt+Bkspc command to fix it. It seems like it might just be the display freezing because one of the times I was watching a Youtube video and the audio continued playing. I have an Nvidia graphics card with the most recent Nvidia drivers for it enabled. I see that a lot of questions about Ubuntu freezing get marked as a duplicate and pretty much always linked back to a thread about what to do when it freezes. Clearly, I've got that bit figured out already and I did read that thread for further advice. What I'm looking for though is how to fix this permanently. output from lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 VGA: 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0166] (rev 09) Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:2200] Kernel driver in use: i915 Update: JohnnyEnglish pointed out that Ubuntu is using the integrated graphics, not my Nvidia card. It turns out my laptop uses Nvidia Optimus and I cannot enable only the graphics card through the BIOS. I found out about Nvidia Prime and got it set up using this article. The settings panel which allows you to select the graphics says that 'performance mode' is enabled but when I check which graphics controller is enabled through the terminal, it still says it's using the integrated graphics. I'm not sure if this could be causing the freezes but I guess it's a starting point. Any ideas on how to resolve this?

    Read the article

  • Prevent oversteering catastrophe in racing games

    - by jdm
    When playing GTA III on Android I noticed something that has been annoying me in almost every racing game I've played (maybe except Mario Kart): Driving straight ahead is easy, but curves are really hard. When I switch lanes or pass somebody, the car starts swiveling back and forth, and any attempt to correct it makes it only worse. The only thing I can do is to hit the brakes. I think this is some kind of oversteering. What makes it so irritating is that it never happens to me in real life (thank god :-)), so 90% of the games with vehicles inside feel unreal to me (despite probably having really good physics engines). I've talked to a couple of people about this, and it seems either you 'get' racing games, or you don't. With a lot of practice, I did manage to get semi-good at some games (e.g. from the Need for Speed series), by driving very cautiously, braking a lot (and usually getting a cramp in my fingers). What can you do as a game developer to prevent the oversteering resonance catastrophe, and make driving feel right? (For a casual racing game, that doesn't strive for 100% realistic physics) I also wonder what games like Super Mario Kart exactly do differently so that they don't have so much oversteering? I guess one problem is that if you play with a keyboard or a touchscreen (but not wheels and pedals), you only have digital input: gas pressed or not, steering left/right or not, and it's much harder to steer appropriately for a given speed. The other thing is that you probably don't have a good sense of speed, and drive much faster than you would (safely) in reality. From the top of my head, one solution might be to vary the steering response with speed.

    Read the article

  • How to handle multiple effect files in XNA

    - by Adam 'Pi' Burch
    So I'm using ModelMesh and it's built in Effects parameter to draw a mesh with some shaders I'm playing with. I have a simple GUI that lets me change these parameters to my heart's desire. My question is, how do I handle shaders that have unique parameters? For example, I want a 'shiny' parameter that affects shaders with Phong-type specular components, but for an environment mapping shader such a parameter doesn't make a lot of sense. How I have it right now is that every time I call the ModelMesh's Draw() function, I set all the Effect parameters as so foreach (ModelMesh m in model.Meshes) { if (isDrawBunny == true)//Slightly change the way the world matrix is calculated if using the bunny object, since it is not quite centered in object space { world = boneTransforms[m.ParentBone.Index] * Matrix.CreateScale(scale) * rotation * Matrix.CreateTranslation(position + bunnyPositionTransform); } else //If not rendering the bunny, draw normally { world = boneTransforms[m.ParentBone.Index] * Matrix.CreateScale(scale) * rotation * Matrix.CreateTranslation(position); } foreach (Effect e in m.Effects) { Matrix ViewProjection = camera.ViewMatrix * camera.ProjectionMatrix; e.Parameters["ViewProjection"].SetValue(ViewProjection); e.Parameters["World"].SetValue(world); e.Parameters["diffuseLightPosition"].SetValue(lightPositionW); e.Parameters["CameraPosition"].SetValue(camera.Position); e.Parameters["LightColor"].SetValue(lightColor); e.Parameters["MaterialColor"].SetValue(materialColor); e.Parameters["shininess"].SetValue(shininess); //e.Parameters //e.Parameters["normal"] } m.Draw(); Note the prescience of the example! The solutions I've thought of involve preloading all the shaders, and updating the unique parameters as needed. So my question is, is there a best practice I'm missing here? Is there a way to pull the parameters a given Effect needs from that Effect? Thank you all for your time!

    Read the article

  • Profit : August, 2012

    - by user462779
    August 2012 issue of Profit is now available online. Way back in 2003, I wrote my first feature for Profit. It was titled “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Application Servers (But Were Afraid To Ask),” and it discussed “cutting-edge” technologies like portals and XML and the brand-new Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE; we’re now on Java EE 7). But despite the dated terms I used in my Profit debut, I noticed something in rereading that old story that has stayed constant: mid-tier technology is where innovative enterprise IT projects happen. It may have been XML in 2003, but it’s SOA in 2012. While preparing the August issue of Profit was more than just a stroll down memory lane for me, it has provided a nice bit of perspective about what changes and what doesn’t in this dynamic IT industry. Technologies continuously evolve—some become standard practice, some are revived or reinvented, and some are left by the wayside. But the drive to innovate and the desire to succeed are business principles that never go out of fashion. Also, be sure to check out the Profit JD Edwards Special Issue 2012 (PDF), featuring partner profiles, customer successes, and Oracle executive interviews. The Middleware Advantage Three ways a flexible, integrate software layer can deliver a competitive edge Playing to Win Electronic Arts’ superefficient hub processes millions of online gaming transactions every day. Adjustable Loans With Oracle Exadata, Reliance Commercial Finance keeps pace with India’s commercial loan market. Future Proof To keep pace with mobile, social, and location-based services, smart technologists are using middleware to innovate. Spring Training Knowledge and communication help Jackson Hewitt’s Tim Bechtold get seasonal workers in top shape. Keeping Online Customers Happy Customers worldwide are comfortable with online service—but are companies meeting customers’ needs?

    Read the article

  • What You Said: Where Do You Find Your Next Game?

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite places and tricks for finding new video games to play. It turns out the least of your problems was finding new games! From the comments it became apparent How-To Geek readers had absolutely no problem finding new games to add to their gaming stable. Buzz writes: I have quite an elaborate procedure in finding my next game:For free games i simply follow the feeds on a few websites like Freegamer, LinuxGames, HappyPenguin and Penguspy. Every now and them i browse Wikipedia articles on free/FOSS games. For commercial games the procedure depends on what i enjoyed the most in that game:- If i enjoyed the story or the general feel: i usually start with a game i like and look for sequels, prequels, mods or spinoffs. I even go out on a limb and give other platforms (than a PC) a try, even if it usually means emulation. If you really enjoy a game series/saga it’s usually worth the effort.- If i enjoy the producer/gaming company then i seek out more of their games.- If i enjoy the technical achievements that went into making the game or if i am concerned for the system requirements of my gear i try to play games that are built on the same engine(s) as one of the games i ran smooth and enjoyed.- If i feel like playing a particular genre i usually start with a title i enjoyed and look for alternatives or similar games- You can always try searching for Game of The Year winners for a particular time period or other similar accomplishments. They usually yield great results. How to Make Your Laptop Choose a Wired Connection Instead of Wireless HTG Explains: What Is Two-Factor Authentication and Should I Be Using It? HTG Explains: What Is Windows RT and What Does It Mean To Me?

    Read the article

  • strange behavior in Box2D+LibGDX when applying impulse

    - by Z0lenDer
    I have been playing around with Box2D and LibGDX and have been using a sample code from DecisionTreeGames as the testing ground. Now I have a screen with four walls and a rectangle shape, lets call it a brick. When I use applyLinearImpulse to the brick, it starts bouncing right and left without any pattern and won't stop! I tried adding friction and increasing the density, but the behavior still remains the same. Here are some of the code that might be useful: method for applying the impulse: center = brick.getWorldCenter(); brick.applyLinearImpulse(20, 0, center.x, center.y); Defining the brick: brick_bodyDef.type = BodyType.DynamicBody; brick_bodyDef.position.set(pos); // brick is initially on the ground brick_bodyDef.angle = 0; brick_body = world.createBody(brick_bodyDef); brick_body.setBullet(true); brick_bodyShape.setAsBox(w,h); brick_fixtureDef.density = 0.9f; brick_fixtureDef.restitution = 1; brick_fixtureDef.shape = brick_bodyShape; brick_fixtureDef.friction=1; brick_body.createFixture(fixtureDef); Walls are defined the same only their bullet value is set to false I would really appreciate it if you could help me have a change this code to have a realistic behavior (i.e. when I apply impulse to the brick it should trip a few times and then stop completely).

    Read the article

  • Code &amp; Slides &ndash; SDE &ndash; What&rsquo;s new in Silverlight 4

    - by Timmy Kokke
    Last Tuesday the Software Developers Network – SDN organized another SDE. I’ve had the opportunity to present a session about Silverlight 4. I talked about lots of new features in Silverlight 4 and Expression Blend 4, focused on the Out-Of-Browser features.     The slides of my presentation can be downloaded here.   In my presentation I demonstrated a couple of features from my new pet project “SilverAmp”. This project is based on the legendary WinAmp, but made entirely in Silverlight. I use it to try out many new Silverlight 4 features. It’s not finished yet, but useful already. It runs outside the browser with elevated trust. It reads your local MyMusic folder and uses the TagLib library to read the ID3 tags of the mp3s it finds. SilverAmp is using MEF for extensibility. It uses a custom Window Chrome, designed in Expression Design. And it shows a notification window when a new song starts to play.   In the future it is going to get song information from Last.FM, will be able to show YouTube videos inside itself and it will tweet about what you are playing. The project will be fully documented to function as a reference implementation for the new Silverlight 4 features.   You can download the source on  http://SilverAmp.codeplex.com   Below are two screenshot of SilverAmp.                     If you have any questions, comments,  issues or feature requests let me know.

    Read the article

  • How to Enable User-Specific Wireless Networks in Windows 7

    - by The Geek
    Wireless network settings in Windows 7 are global across all users, but there’s a little-known option that lets you switch them to per-user, so each user has access to only the networks they are allowed to connect to. Here’s how it all works. How is this useful? Maybe you want to prevent a particular user from accessing the internet—if you don’t give them the wireless password, they won’t be able to get online. This could be very useful if you’ve got mini-people playing games on the family PC, but you don’t want them getting online Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Enable User-Specific Wireless Networks in Windows 7 How to Use Google Chrome as Your Default PDF Reader (the Easy Way) How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware The Citroen GT – An Awesome Video Game Car Brought to Life [Video] Final Man vs. Machine Round of Jeopardy Unfolds; Watson Dominates Give Chromium-Based Browser Desktop Notifications a Native System Look in Ubuntu Chrome Time Track Is a Simple Task Time Tracker Google Sky Map Turns Your Android Phone into a Digital Telescope Walking Through a Seaside Village Wallpaper

    Read the article

  • links for 2011-01-03

    - by Bob Rhubart
    Using Solaris zfs + iscsi targets with Oracle VM (Wim Coekaerts Blog) "I was playing with my Oracle VM setup and needed some shared storage that was block based. I did not have a storage array available but I did have a Solaris box, that I use for Oracle VDI, available." - Wim Coekaerts (tags: oracle otn solaris oraclevm virtualization) DanT's GridBlog: Oracle Grid Engine: Changes for a Bright Future at Oracle "Today, we are entering a new chapter in Oracle Grid Engine’s life. Oracle has been working with key members of the open source community to pass on the torch for maintaining the open source code base to the Open Grid Scheduler project hosted on SourceForge." - Dan Templeton (tags: oracle gridengine) Oracle Fusion Middleware Security: How do I secure my services? "I've been up early for a couple of days talking to a customer about how they should secure their services,' says Chris Johnson. "I'm going to tell you what I told them." (tags: oracle fusionmiddleware security) OldSpice your Innovation - Dangers of Status Quo E2.0 | Enterprise 2.0 Blogs "If organizations only leverage E2.0 technologies in a 'me too' fashion, they are essentially using a bucket to bail water from a leaking ship." - John Brunswick (tags: oracle enteprise2.0) The Aquarium: GlassFish in 2011 - What to expect A look into the Glassfish crystal ball... (tags: oracle glassfish) Andrejus Baranovskis's Blog: Fusion Middleware 11g Security - Retrieve Security Groups from ADF 11g Oracle ACE Director Andrejus Baranovskis shows you what to do when you need to access security information directly from an ADF 11g application. (tags: oracle otn fusionmiddleware security adf) @eelzinga: Book review : Oracle SOA Suite 11g R1 Developer's Guide "What I really liked in this book...was the compare/description of the Oracle Service Bus. The authors did a great job on describing functionality of components existing in the SOA Suite and how to model them in your own process." - Oracle ACE Eric ElZinga (tags: oracle oracleace soa bookreview soasuite)

    Read the article

  • Bomberman clone, how to do bombs?

    - by hustlerinc
    I'm playing around with a bomberman clone to learn game-developement. So far I've done tiles, movement, collision detection, and item pickup. I also have pseudo bombplacing (just graphics and collision, no real functionality). I've made a jsFiddle of the game with the functionality I currently have. The code in the fiddle is very ugly though. Scroll past the map and you find how I place bombs. Anyway, what I would like to do is an object, that has the general information about bombs like: function Bomb(){ this.radius = player.bombRadius; this.placeBomb = function (){ if(player.bombs != 0){ // place bomb } } this.explosion = function (){ // Explosion } } I don't really know how to fit it into the code though. Everytime I place a bomb, do I do var bomb = new Bomb(); or do i need to constantly have that in the script to be able to access it. How does the bomb do damage? Is it as simple as doing X,Y in all directions until radius runs out or object stops it? Can I use something like setTimeout(bomb.explosion, 3000) as timer? Any help is appreciated, be it a simple explanation of the theory or code examples based on the fiddle. When I tried the object way it breaks the code.

    Read the article

  • Developing games using virtualization on macOS (or Linux) [on hold]

    - by zpinner
    From what I've seen, most of the gamedev tools and engines (that could generate cross platform games) are not supported on Mac. Havok/Project Anarchy, UDK, GameMaker, e.g. . Basically, the only options I found are: Unity3d and monogame + xamarin. Unity is nice and I've been playing with it for some time, but the free version is quite limited when we're talking about shaders, that made me consider that as an indie developer, I might want more freedom to experiment new things, without paying the expensive unity license. I didn't try monogame + xamarin yet, and altough XNA is a very nice game framework, I'd like to have more freedom to experiment and finish a game first before paying for the IDE, which is not possible with the current Xamarin business model. That leaves me with the thought that I must go back to windows, which I'd preferably do it partially, if it's possible. Using BootCamp is something that I'd like to avoid, since it's a pain to reboot when changing OS and that would probably force me to become a 100% windows user. Is there anyone actually developing a game using virtualization solutions like parallels or vmwareFusion? How was your experience?

    Read the article

  • Is using multiple canvas objects a good practice?

    - by user1818924
    We're developing a jump and run game with HTML5 and JavaScript and have to build an own game framework for this. Here we have some difficulties and would like to ask you for some advice: We have a "Stage" object, which represents the root of our game and is a global div-wrapper. The stage can contain multiple "Scenes", which are also div-elements. We would implement a Scene for the playing task, for pause, etc. and switch between them. Each scene can therefore contain multiple "Layers", representing a canvas. These Layer contain "ObjectEntities", which represent images or other shapes like rectangles, etc. Each Objectentity has its own temporaryCanvas, to be able to draw images for one entity, whereas another contains a rectangle. We set an activeScene in our Stage, so when the game is played, just the active scene is drawn. Calling activeScene.draw(), calls all sublayers to draw, which draw their entities (calling drawImage(entity.canvas)). But is this some kind of good practice? Having multiple canvas to draw? Each game loop every layer-context is cleared and drawn again. E.g. we just have a still Background-Layer, … wouldn't it be more useful to draw this once and not to clear it every time and redraw it? Or should we use a global canvas for example in the Stage and just use this canvas to draw? But we thought this would be to expensive...

    Read the article

  • Should I expect my team to have more than a basic proficiency with our source control system?

    - by Joshua Smith
    My company switched from Subversion to Git about three months ago. We had weeks of advance notice prior to the switch. Since I'd never used Git before (or any other DVCS), I read Pro Git and spent a little time spinning up my own repositories and playing around, so that when we switched I'd be able to keep working with minimal pain. Now I'm the 'Git guy' by default. With a couple of exceptions, most of my team still has no idea how Git works. For example, they still think of branches as complete copies of the source code, and even go so far as to clone the repo into multiple folders (one per branch). They generally look at Git as a scary black box. Given the fundamental nature of source control in our daily work (not to mention the ridiculous amount of power Git affords us), I'm of the opinion that any dev who doesn't achieve a certain level of proficiency with it is a liability. Should I expect my team to have at least some understanding of how Git works internally, and how to use it beyond the most basic pull/merge/push operations? Or am I just making something out of nothing?

    Read the article

  • XSF-FO intellisense and national languages with Apache FOP

    - by Lukasz Kurylo
    Some time ago I showed how to get an intellisense and how to configure the FO.NET to acquire national characters inside the generated pdf files. Due to the limitations that I mensioned in my previous post, I started playing with the Apache FOP. In this post I want to show, how to acquire the same result as I showed in the two posts related to FO.NET.   Intellisense   To get the intellisense from the XSL-FO templates set the xsi:schemaLocation the same way I showed it in this post. The only diffrence to FO.NET is that, during generating the document by the code I showed last time we will get an exception:   org.apache.fop.fo.ValidationException: Invalid property encountered on "fo:root": xsi:schemaLocation (See position 6:11)   Fortunatelly there is a very easy way to resolve this without removing the entire attribute along with the intellisense. Add to the FopFactory the ignoreNamespace by:   FopFactory fopFactory = FopFactory.newInstance(); fopFactory.ignoreNamespace(http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance);   Notice that, the url specified in this method this is a namespace for the xmlns:xsi namespace, not xsi.schemaLocation.   Fonts / national characters   This point is a little dfferent to acquire, but not more complicated that it was with FO.NET. To set the fonts in Apache FOP 1.0, we need a configuration file. A sample one can be get from the directory where we unpacked the fop binaries, from conf subdirectory. There is a file called fop.xconf. We must copy this file to our solution. In the simplest way, in the <fonts> tag we can add  <auto-detect/>. Thanks to this, FOP will index all fonts available on the installed operating system. There probably should be no problem, if we have a http handler or a WCF Service on the server that serves the generated pdf documents. In this situation we can use all available fonts on this server.   To use this config file, we must set a path to it:   FopFactory fopFactory = FopFactory.newInstance(); fopFactory.setUserConfig(new File("fop.xconf"));

    Read the article

  • MPlayer does not work

    - by Soham Pal
    Using the xubuntu desktop, on Ubuntu Raring updated from Quantal. MPlayer never really worked. No video, no audio, nothing. I really can't be any more helpful, so here's the log: petey@home-pc:~$ mplayer "/home/petey/Downloads/Polar Bear Cafe (480p)HorribleSubs]/[HorribleSubs] Polar Bear Cafe - 01 [480p].mkv" MPlayer SVN-r35984-4.7 (C) 2000-2013 MPlayer Team Playing /home/petey/Downloads/Polar Bear Cafe (480p)[HorribleSubs]/[HorribleSubs] Polar Bear Cafe - 01 [480p].mkv. libavformat version 55.0.100 (internal) libavformat file format detected. [lavf] stream 0: video (h264), -vid 0 [lavf] stream 1: audio (aac), -aid 0 [lavf] stream 2: subtitle (ass), -sid 0 VIDEO: [H264] 848x480 0bpp 23.810 fps 0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s) Clip info: creation_time: 2012-04-05 21:36:10 Load subtitles in /home/petey/Downloads/Polar Bear Cafe (480p)[HorribleSubs]/ Can't open /dev/fb0: Permission denied [fbdev2] Can't open /dev/fb0: Permission denied VO: [v4l2] No such file or directory vo_cvidix: No vidix driver name provided, probing available ones (-v option for details)! [cyberblade] Error occurred during pci scan: Operation not permitted [mach64] Error occurred during pci scan: Operation not permitted [mga] Error occurred during pci scan: Operation not permitted [mga] Error occurred during pci scan: Operation not permitted [nvidia_vid] Error occurred during pci scan: Operation not permitted [pm3] Error occurred during pci scan: Operation not permitted [radeon] Error occurred during pci scan: Operation not permitted [rage128] Error occurred during pci scan: Operation not permitted [s3_vid] Error occurred during pci scan: Operation not permitted [SiS] Error occurred during pci scan: Operation not permitted [unichrome] Error occurred during pci scan: Operation not permitted [VO_SUB_VIDIX] Couldn't find working VIDIX driver. ========================================================================== Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family libavcodec version 55.0.100 (internal) Selected video codec: [ffh264] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg H.264) ========================================================================== ========================================================================== Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, floatle, 0.0 kbit/0.00% (ratio: 0->352800) Selected audio codec: [ffaac] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg AAC (MPEG-2/MPEG-4 Audio)) ========================================================================== [AO OSS] audio_setup: Can't open audio device /dev/dsp: No such file or directory DVB card number must be between 1 and 4 AO: [null] 44100Hz 2ch floatle (4 bytes per sample) Starting playback... Movie-Aspect is 1.78:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect. VO: [null] 848x480 = 854x480 Planar YV12 A: 4.7 V: 4.7 A-V: 0.002 ct: 0.083 0/ 0 22% 0% 0.5% 0 0 MPlayer interrupted by signal 2 in module: sleep_timer A: 4.7 V: 4.7 A-V: 0.001 ct: 0.083 0/ 0 21% 0% 0.5% 0 0 Exiting... (Quit)

    Read the article

  • Setting XSL-FO XML Schema in Visual Studio

    - by Lukasz Kurylo
    I'm playing lately with an XSL-FO for generating a pdf documents. XSL-FO has a long list of available tags and attributes, which for a new guy who want to create a simple document is a nightmare to find a proper one. Fortunatelly we can set an schema for XSL-FO, so will result in acquire a full intellisense in VS. For a simple *.fo file, we can set the path to the schema directly in file: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <fo:root       xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"       xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"       xsi:schemaLocation=" http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format http://www.xmlblueprint.com/documents/fop.xsd"> ...   We can of course use the build in VS XML Schemas selector. To use it, we must copy the schema file to the Schemas catalog (defaut path for VS2012 is C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Xml\Schemas). Then we can go to Properties of the opened xml/xslt file and set the new added schema to file:                 From now, we should have an enable intellisense as shown below: .

    Read the article

  • What did programmers do before variable scope, where everything is global?

    - by hydroparadise
    So, I am having to deal with seemingly archiac language (called PowerOn) where I have a main method, a few datatypes to define variables with, and has the ability to have sub-procedures (essentially void methods) that does not return a type nor accepts any arguements. The problem here is that EVERYTHING is global. I've read of these type of languages, but most books take the aproach "Ok, we use to use a horse and cariage, but now, here's a car so let's learn how to work on THAT!" We will NEVER relive those days". I have to admit, the mind is struggling to think outside of scope and extent. Well here I am. I am trying to figure out how to best manage nothing but global variables across several open methods. Yep, even iterators for for loops have to be defined globaly, which I find myself recycling in different parts of my code. My Question: for those that have this type experience, how did programmers deal with a large amount of variables in a global playing field? I have feeling it just became a mental juggling trick, but I would be interested to know if there were any known aproaches.

    Read the article

  • XNA texture stretching at extreme coordinates

    - by Shaun Hamman
    I was toying around with infinitely scrolling 2D textures using the XNA framework and came across a rather strange observation. Using the basic draw code: spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Deferred, null, SamplerState.PointWrap, null, null); spriteBatch.Draw(texture, Vector2.Zero, sourceRect, Color.White, 0.0f, Vector2.Zero, 2.0f, SpriteEffects.None, 1.0f); spriteBatch.End(); with a small 32x32 texture and a sourceRect defined as: sourceRect = new Rectangle(0, 0, Window.ClientBounds.Width, Window.ClientBounds.Height); I was able to scroll the texture across the window infinitely by changing the X and Y coordinates of the sourceRect. Playing with different coordinate locations, I noticed that if I made either of the coordinates too large, the texture no longer drew and was instead replaced by either a flat color or alternating bands of color. Tracing the coordinates back down, I found the following at around (0, -16,777,000): As you can see, the texture in the top half of the image is stretched vertically. My question is why is this occurring? Certainly I can do things like bind the x/y position to some low multiple of 32 to give the same effect without this occurring, so fixing it isn't an issue, but I'm curious about why this happens. My initial thought was perhaps it was overflowing the coordinate value or some such thing, but looking at a data type size chart, the next closest below is an unsigned short with a range of about 32,000, and above is an unsigned int with a range of around 2,000,000,000 so that isn't likely the cause.

    Read the article

  • Rant - Why is Windows Azure not available in Africa?

    - by Allan Rwakatungu
    Yesterday at the .NET user group meeting in Kampala Uganda  I gave a talk on cloud computing with Windows Azure  (details will be in my next blog post). The guys where excited. Without owning they own inftrastucture and at low cost they can build scalable , highly available applications. Not quite. Azure accounts are only available to people in particular countries - none from Africa. I attended PDC in 2008 when Microsoft unleashed Windows Azure. One of the case studies to show the benefits ofr cloud computing was a project in Africa for an education service in Ethiopia. The point they where making was that the cloud was perfect for scenarios where computing infrastructure is not sophiscated, like Ethiopia. Perfect , i thought. So i got my beta account from PDC and started playing around in the cloud. Then Azure goes live , my beta account does not work any more and I cant pay because am from Uganda. Microsoft , this sucks. I dont know the reasons for Microsoft doing this, but am sure we can work out something. We in Africa need the cloud more than anybody else in the world. Setting up data centers that are higly scalable and available for our startups is not an option we have. But we also cant pay for cloud computing with Microsoft. Microsoft, we know we are a tiny insigficant market for a company your size, but your excluding us only continues to widen the digital divide. Microsoft , how about you have a reseller model for cloud computing. Instead of trying to deal direclty with each client you have local partners who help you sell and bill your cloud services. I think that would lead to Windows Azure being available in Africa. I can help you resell in Uganda.

    Read the article

  • Can't play Steel Storm, Burning Retribution

    - by Goytor
    I've bougth Steel Storm, Burning Retribution in the Software Center, and every time I run it shows the following message: You have reached this menu due to missing or unlocable content/data You may consider adding -base dir /path/to/game to your launch commandline I've gone to main menu in the preferences tab and changed the launcher to no avail. I've tried running it from console, with /opt/steelstorm-episode2/steelstorm, I got: Game is Steel-Storm using base gamedir gamedata Steel-Storm Linux 01:07:07 Jun 11 2011 - release Playing shareware version. Skeletal animation uses SSE code path DPSOFTRAST available (SSE2 instructions detected) Failed to init SDL joystick subsystem: couldn't exec quake.rc couldn't exec default.cfg execing config.cfg couldn't exec autoexec.cfg Client using an automatically assigned port Client opened a socket on address 0.0.0.0:0 Client opened a socket on address [0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0]:0 Linked against SDL version 1.2.12 Using SDL library version 1.2.14 GL_VENDOR: NVIDIA Corporation GL_RENDERER: GeForce 6150SE nForce 430/PCI/SSE2/3DNOW! GL_VERSION: 2.1.2 NVIDIA 270.41.06 vid.support.arb_multisample 1 vid.mode.samples 0 vid.support.gl20shaders 1 Video Mode: fullscreen 640x480x32x0.00hz S_Startup: initializing sound output format: 48000Hz, 16 bit, 2 channels... Wanted audio Specification: Channels : 2 Format : 0x8010 Frequency : 48000 Samples : 2048 Obtained audio specification: Channels : 2 Format : 0x8010 Frequency : 48000 Samples : 1024 Sound format: 48000Hz, 2 channels, 16 bits per sample CDAudio_Init: No CD in player. Can't get initial CD volume CD Audio Initialized If I try -base /opt/steelstorm-episode2/steelstorm says "command not found".

    Read the article

  • Finding bugs is difficult, right?

    - by Laila
    Something I hear developers tell us all the time is that they take pride in being a developer.and that bugs are a dent in that pride. Someone once told me "I know I have found bugs years later, and it's the worst feeling in the world." So how can you avoid that sinking feeling when you find out a bug has been in production months before someone lets you know about it? Besides, let's face it: hearing about a bug often means a world of pain, because it can take hours to track down where the problem is and more hours (if not days) to fix it. And during that time, you're not working on something new, and that, my friends, is really frustrating! So to cheer you up, we've created a Bug Hunt game, where you battle against the clock to spot bugs. We've really enjoyed putting this together and hope you enjoy playing it too. Once you're done with the bug hunt, we explain how easy it can be to find and fix bugs in real life, using a neat mechanism that we call Automated Error Reporting. Play the game now.

    Read the article

  • Automatic Generalization

    - by Nick Harrison
    I have been interested in functional programming since college. I played around a little with LISP back then, but I have not had an opportunity since then. Now that F# ships standard with VS 2010, I figured now is my chance. So, I was reading up on it a little over the weekend when I came across a very interesting topic. F# includes a concept called "Automatic Generalization". As I understand it, the compiler will look at your method and analyze how you are using parameters. It will automatically switch to a generic parameter if it is possible based on your usage. Wow! I am looking forward to playing with this. I have long been an advocate of using the most generic types possible especially when developing library classes. Use the highest level base class that you can get away with. Use an interface instead of a specific implementation. I don't advocate passing object around, but you get the idea. Tools like resharper, fxCop, and most static code analysis tools provide guidance to help you identify when a more generalized type is possible, but this is the first time I have heard about the compiler taking matters into its own hands. I like the sound of this. We'll see if it is a good idea or not. What are your thoughts? Am I missing the mark on what Automatic Generalization does in F#? How would this work in C#? Do you see any problems with this?

    Read the article

  • Extra Life 2012

    - by Chris Gardner
    Greetings, It's that time of year again. The time when I beg you for money for charity. See, unlike those bell ringers outside Wal-Mart, I don't do it when you have ten bazillion holiday obligations... Once again, I will be enduring a 24-hour marathon of gaming to raise money for Children Hospital in Birmingham. All the money goes straight to them, and you get to tell Uncie Samual that you're good for that money. I'd REALLY like to break $1000 this year, as I have come REALLY close for the past 2 year to doing so. Don't live near me? Live closer to a children's hospital in the Children's Miracle Network? It's OK. Go find a participant that is working for your hospital and hook them up. Just left me know, I will will join in with the karmic love you will already receive. This year, the event will take place on October 20th, beginning at 8 A.M. Once again, I will try to provide some web streams, etc, if you want to point and laugh (especially if I have to result to playing Dance Central at 4 AM to stay awake for the last part.) Look at it this way, I'm going to badger you about this for the next month. You might as well donate some money so you can righteously tell me to shut the Smurf up. You can place your bid at the link below. Feel free to spread the word to anyone and everyone. I thank you. The children thank you. Several breeds of feral platypus thank you. Maybe, just maybe, doing so will will help you feel the love felt by re-fried beans when lovingly hugged in a warm tortilla. Enjoy your burrito. http://www.extra-life.org/participant/cgardner

    Read the article

  • Complexity of defense AI

    - by Fredrik Johansson
    I have a non-released game, and currently it's only possible to play with another human being. As the game rules are made up by me, I think it would be great if new players could learn basic game play by playing against an AI opponent. I mean it's not like Tennis, where the majority knows at least the fundamental rules. On the other hand, I'm a bit concerned that this AI implementation can be quite complex. I hope you can help me with an complexity estimation. I've tried to summarize the gameplay below. Is this defense AI very hard to do? Basic Defense Game Play Player Defender can move within his land, i.e. inside a random, non-convex, polygon. This land will also contain obstacles modeled as polygons, that Defender has to move around. Player Attacker has also a land, modeled as another such polygon. Assume that Defender shall defend against Attacker. Attacker will then throw a thingy towards Defender's land. To be rewarded, Attacker wants to hit Defender's land, and Defender will want to strike away the thingy from his land before it stops to prevent Attacker from scoring. To feint Defender, Attacker might run around within his land before the throw, and based on these attacker movements Defender shall then continuously move to the best defense position within his land.

    Read the article

  • Snake Game Help

    - by MuhammadA
    I am making a snake game and learning XNA at the same time. I have 3 classes : Game.cs, Snake.cs and Apple.cs My problem is more of a conceptual problem, I want to know which class is really responsible for ... detecting collision of snake head on apple/itself/wall? which class should increase the snakes speed, size? It seems to me that however much I try and put the snake stuff into snake.cs that game.cs has to know a lot about the snake, like : -- I want to increase the score depending on size of snake, the score variable is inside game.cs, which means now I have to ask the snake its size on every hit of the apple... seems a bit unclean all this highly coupled code. or -- I DO NOT want to place the apple under the snake... now the apple suddenly has to know about all the snake parts, my head hurts when I think of that. Maybe there should be some sort of AppleLayer.cs class that should know about the snake... Whats the best approach in such a simple scenario? Any tips welcome. Game.cs : using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Design; namespace Snakez { public enum CurrentGameState { Playing, Paused, NotPlaying } public class Game1 : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game { private GraphicsDeviceManager _graphics; private SpriteBatch _spriteBatch; private readonly Color _niceGreenColour = new Color(167, 255, 124); private KeyboardState _oldKeyboardState; private SpriteFont _scoreFont; private SoundEffect _biteSound, _crashSound; private Vector2 _scoreLocation = new Vector2(10, 10); private Apple _apple; private Snake _snake; private int _score = 0; private int _speed = 1; public Game1() { _graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); Content.RootDirectory = "Content"; } /// <summary> /// Allows the game to perform any initialization it needs to before starting to run. /// This is where it can query for any required services and load any non-graphic /// related content. Calling base.Initialize will enumerate through any components /// and initialize them as well. /// </summary> protected override void Initialize() { base.Initialize(); } /// <summary> /// LoadContent will be called once per game and is the place to load /// all of your content. /// </summary> protected override void LoadContent() { _spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); _scoreFont = Content.Load<SpriteFont>("Score"); _apple = new Apple(800, 480, Content.Load<Texture2D>("Apple")); _snake = new Snake(Content.Load<Texture2D>("BodyBlock")); _biteSound = Content.Load<SoundEffect>("Bite"); _crashSound = Content.Load<SoundEffect>("Crash"); } /// <summary> /// UnloadContent will be called once per game and is the place to unload /// all content. /// </summary> protected override void UnloadContent() { Content.Unload(); } /// <summary> /// Allows the game to run logic such as updating the world, /// checking for collisions, gathering input, and playing audio. /// </summary> /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param> protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { KeyboardState newKeyboardState = Keyboard.GetState(); if (newKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Escape)) { this.Exit(); // Allows the game to exit } else if (newKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Up) && !_oldKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Up)) { _snake.SetDirection(Direction.Up); } else if (newKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Down) && !_oldKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Down)) { _snake.SetDirection(Direction.Down); } else if (newKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Left) && !_oldKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Left)) { _snake.SetDirection(Direction.Left); } else if (newKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Right) && !_oldKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Right)) { _snake.SetDirection(Direction.Right); } _oldKeyboardState = newKeyboardState; _snake.Update(); if (_snake.IsEating(_apple)) { _biteSound.Play(); _score += 10; _apple.Place(); } base.Update(gameTime); } /// <summary> /// This is called when the game should draw itself. /// </summary> /// <param name="gameTime">Provides a snapshot of timing values.</param> protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(_niceGreenColour); float frameRate = 1 / (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; _spriteBatch.Begin(); _spriteBatch.DrawString(_scoreFont, "Score : " + _score, _scoreLocation, Color.Red); _apple.Draw(_spriteBatch); _snake.Draw(_spriteBatch); _spriteBatch.End(); base.Draw(gameTime); } } } Snake.cs : using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; namespace Snakez { public enum Direction { Up, Down, Left, Right } public class Snake { private List<Rectangle> _parts; private readonly Texture2D _bodyBlock; private readonly int _startX = 160; private readonly int _startY = 120; private int _moveDelay = 100; private DateTime _lastUpdatedAt; private Direction _direction; private Rectangle _lastTail; public Snake(Texture2D bodyBlock) { _bodyBlock = bodyBlock; _parts = new List<Rectangle>(); _parts.Add(new Rectangle(_startX, _startY, _bodyBlock.Width, _bodyBlock.Height)); _parts.Add(new Rectangle(_startX + bodyBlock.Width, _startY, _bodyBlock.Width, _bodyBlock.Height)); _parts.Add(new Rectangle(_startX + (bodyBlock.Width) * 2, _startY, _bodyBlock.Width, _bodyBlock.Height)); _parts.Add(new Rectangle(_startX + (bodyBlock.Width) * 3, _startY, _bodyBlock.Width, _bodyBlock.Height)); _direction = Direction.Right; _lastUpdatedAt = DateTime.Now; } public void Draw(SpriteBatch spriteBatch) { foreach (var p in _parts) { spriteBatch.Draw(_bodyBlock, new Vector2(p.X, p.Y), Color.White); } } public void Update() { if (DateTime.Now.Subtract(_lastUpdatedAt).TotalMilliseconds > _moveDelay) { //DateTime.Now.Ticks _lastTail = _parts.First(); _parts.Remove(_lastTail); /* add new head in right direction */ var lastHead = _parts.Last(); var newHead = new Rectangle(0, 0, _bodyBlock.Width, _bodyBlock.Height); switch (_direction) { case Direction.Up: newHead.X = lastHead.X; newHead.Y = lastHead.Y - _bodyBlock.Width; break; case Direction.Down: newHead.X = lastHead.X; newHead.Y = lastHead.Y + _bodyBlock.Width; break; case Direction.Left: newHead.X = lastHead.X - _bodyBlock.Width; newHead.Y = lastHead.Y; break; case Direction.Right: newHead.X = lastHead.X + _bodyBlock.Width; newHead.Y = lastHead.Y; break; } _parts.Add(newHead); _lastUpdatedAt = DateTime.Now; } } public void SetDirection(Direction newDirection) { if (_direction == Direction.Up && newDirection == Direction.Down) { return; } else if (_direction == Direction.Down && newDirection == Direction.Up) { return; } else if (_direction == Direction.Left && newDirection == Direction.Right) { return; } else if (_direction == Direction.Right && newDirection == Direction.Left) { return; } _direction = newDirection; } public bool IsEating(Apple apple) { if (_parts.Last().Intersects(apple.Location)) { GrowBiggerAndFaster(); return true; } return false; } private void GrowBiggerAndFaster() { _parts.Insert(0, _lastTail); _moveDelay -= (_moveDelay / 100)*2; } } } Apple.cs : using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; namespace Snakez { public class Apple { private readonly int _maxWidth, _maxHeight; private readonly Texture2D _texture; private readonly Random random = new Random(); public Rectangle Location { get; private set; } public Apple(int screenWidth, int screenHeight, Texture2D texture) { _maxWidth = (screenWidth + 1) - texture.Width; _maxHeight = (screenHeight + 1) - texture.Height; _texture = texture; Place(); } public void Place() { Location = GetRandomLocation(_maxWidth, _maxHeight); } private Rectangle GetRandomLocation(int maxWidth, int maxHeight) { // x and y -- multiple of 20 int x = random.Next(1, maxWidth); var leftOver = x % 20; x = x - leftOver; int y = random.Next(1, maxHeight); leftOver = y % 20; y = y - leftOver; return new Rectangle(x, y, _texture.Width, _texture.Height); } public void Draw(SpriteBatch spriteBatch) { spriteBatch.Draw(_texture, Location, Color.White); } } }

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161  | Next Page >