This sounds like it might actually work. One of the big focuses in Snow Leopard is on GPGPU, so having a kickass video processor would be more important than ever before.

The workaround for DarkPlaces is to compensate only for old maps. New maps typically are designed with rtlights files in mind, which lets the mapper designate which lights are static and which are dynamic. If you use these features, DP gets a whole lot faster per frame.

Its not that its poorly coded, but rather an oddity that comes from playing maps that aren't designed for real-time lighting.

In the original Quake, the lighting was hardcoded (maps were put through a "light" compile phase that would determine all the shadows and put the shadowmap directly onto the level). Because it was static lighting, the designers put lights all over the place. This gave them nice, even lighting with no performance hit, except that the light phase would take longer.

This worked great in 1996, but since modern games have real-time lighting, jamming a room full of lights doesn't work as well. Since the "light" phase is run on every frame, there's a substantial lag introduced by having the number of lights they used (if you poke around the map source posted by Romero, its well into the hundreds in some levels). By comparison, Doom 3 had far fewer lights per level (typically, >100 lights) and had some serious culling going on so it wouldn't have to render every light every frame (something that the id Tech 1 engine doesn't support).

Moral of the story: a crapload of lights is slow, no matter where you put the lighting calculations.

DWANGO. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DWANGO

A patch added multiplayer to the original Deus Ex. The version that's sold on Steam (and as the GOTY edition) has this patch, and if you have an older copy you can just download it. Its worth a look, since its a compressed form of the character development in the full game. Plus there are some pretty good server-side mods.

"running Windows XP under virtualbox is a lot faster than running Windows natively"

WHAT?!?!?!? Are you crazy? By its very definition, running an OS in a VM is slower than running an OS natively, since there is still a host OS that's running the VM app.

You say that the Xbox fiasco is on its way out. If this its true, MS is completely going to gut their investment in gaming. They've already trashed Ensemble (Age of Empires) and ACES (Flight Sim), two storied and successful PC franchises. Some speculation is that the products released were too niche, but there's no reason to gut popular products that continued to improve over time when they're profitable. Combine these cuts with the abomination that is Games for Windows and DirectX 11's focus on video over gaming, and I have to wonder if MS is able to take any more hits against gaming, which for many power users is the main reason to keep a Windows install around.

There is a small speaker, but music doesn't play through it. iPods are designed for you to use them with a pair of headphones are earbuds, and only the use the speaker sparingly (typically as a clicker if there are no headphones attached).

That said, my 1st gen. iPod Touch doesn't have bluetooth or a mic input, so what's the point of it? Or is this limited to 2nd gen. iTouches?

In this case, it is a lost sale. The business would have bought the software otherwise.

Their "application" just edits the Windows standard configuration and plops a completely useless Flash-based nagware app promoting their "security" suite. Having to deal with this on my parents' computer pisses me off. Its something their techs should know how to do without software yet don't.

Sony, a RIAA/MPAA member, is the author of SecuROM. For more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securom

I'm going to go out on a limb, but... I think the RIAA might be better off if they dropped their "Settlement Center." Rather than hanging the threat of a lawsuit, they should actually file the lawsuit before going to the settlement center. Give everyone their day in court, and a chance to say right off the bat that the case is bull. Let a technically experienced judge rule on this. This idea could be extended to the whole filtering business, if it were to ever get written into law (*shudder*). This should clear the hurdle of dirty tricks (the judge should spot those). It doesn't age discriminate. Also, if someone can stick a hole in this, please do.

PMCE was absolutely awesome. Between that and the update of Space Invaders (SI: Extreme), there's some good proof as to how these classic arcade games should get updated. Flashy graphics that embrace the original sprites, remixed music, and variations on levels.

That was because the AI was a little too good. For example, a pair of drug addicts would seek out all the drugs they could afford, and would then go and knock off a drug dealer. There's a mod that reinstates this AI and stuff like that happens pretty frequently. Since the AI doesn't have as complex motivations in a combat-focused game like FEAR, I could see better AI being a boon rather than a detriment.

:)
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<br> /C