Ed Borden - Latest Comments

Re: Ed Borden: NVIDIA, Run, Don't Walk, From x86

Lily Wu — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 04:55:42 -0000

Maybe I should " good to great". I like reading.

Re: Ed Borden: NVIDIA, Run, Don't Walk, From x86

Lily Wu — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 04:52:31 -0000

Maybe I should " good to great".

Re: Ed Borden: Smaller Business Doesn't Automatically Equal More Agile Business

Lily Wu — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 04:48:29 -0000

Insightful post,i agree with it.And small is good and big is bad.

Re: Ed Borden: Far Cry 2:The Next Step in Ultra-Realistic Gaming

Anonymous — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 08:52:04 -0000

It is extremely interesting for me to read that post. Thank you for it. I like such topics and everything that is connected to them. I definitely want to read a bit more soon.

Re: Ed Borden: Mega-Irony: Microsoft Digs Up Apple's 25 Year Old Mistakes

Mike Tommlin — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 01:02:12 -0000

I could not agree more. The sad reality is that XBOX 360 consoles are really having issues with the hardware inside them. I have personally experienced a comically large list of problems: (3) 3 red lights 0020, (2) with disc read error e74, (2) DOA with error e64, several with random audio and video-related issues and one that actually exploded with a faulty PSU. and yet am still (well not entirely) commited due to the investment in time and money. I did find this guide: xbox 360 error code fix

Re: Ed Borden: Innovating Physics Gameplay - Red Faction: Guerrilla

Ed Borden — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:27:33 -0000

I know, I just saw that sale today, too. Fuming... I paid $40 for Red
Faction by itself about a month ago.

I haven't bought MW2 yet, either, and not sure I will. No one is
saying too much about the SP, and as far as the MP, I won't even go
there.

What will be interesting is when all of these different pieces of core
tech start to make their way into different franchises. I would have
loved to have had Red Faction destruction inside the Far Cry 2 engine.
I wonder if Volition can sell it as middleware..

Re: Ed Borden: Innovating Physics Gameplay - Red Faction: Guerrilla

Sean Hall — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:23:44 -0000

Hey Ed,
Interesting read. Sounds like a fun game. I wish Infinity Ward would of made similiar design decisions with COD6. I didnt buy that game... more of the same, really.

On Steam, you can get all of THQ's games, and I mean, *all*, for 49 bucks. That includes Red Faction: Guerilla.

Re: Ed Borden: Innovating Physics Gameplay - Red Faction: Guerrilla

Gldm — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:54:51 -0000

Yes it was mostly underground, much like most of the Quakes at the time. Usually you had an engine that was great indoors and crap at outdoors (Quake), or great at outdoors and crap indoors (Tribes). It's hard to do both, especially with much less RAM and before shaders.

Valve can litter maps with objects because their maps are old quake-style static blocky things that they then try to hide the appearance of with lots of nifty objects. I've messed with the map editor, and HL2 shows its age there if not on screen so much as of yet.

As for the AI, it's just the next step in the progression. First there was text, and you were limited to interacting with whatever the designer could remember to write in a description. Then came basic graphics, where you could just see a (theoretically, neglecting resolution issues) limitless amount of detail, and the limit moved to having to render each camera or object angle. Then 3D came, which solved this because a model can basically be viewed at any angle, much more efficiently than every possible 2D scene. 3D's bottleneck is animation, having that model react and move realistically in the rest of the world, because someone has to either do it by hand, or make rules. Those rules eventually progress to physics, which will give infinite animation by having all animation procedurally generated (see Spore) and dynamically reacting to the environment (no more silly clip-through issues). The bottleneck then shifts to decision making systems to control what type of actions models do, and individual animations, views, details, and such are finally all automated and out of the way, allowing what we've been aiming for the whole time - unrestricted response to the player consistent with the game world.

Re: Ed Borden: Innovating Physics Gameplay - Red Faction: Guerrilla

Ed Borden — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:44:20 -0000

I remember the original Red Faction, too. I actually remember not
being that big of a fan. Wasn't it all underground or something?

I hope Volition's next iteration will address the terrain, that seems
like the next logical step. I'd also love to see them deal with the
debris from the buildings in a more creative way next time, instead of
it all just basically disappearing. The lack of CONTENTS in the
buildings was a little fishy, too. You've got these big huge
structures and no furniture, nothing. Makes me think of how Valve has
their maps basically littered with little things like computers and
furniture, but then you'll run into stuff like toasters that are
indestructible.

We'll get there! And I love the journey, it's exciting seeing what
developers are coming up with.

Good point about the AI, too, although the combat AI they built into
Red Faction is darn good. I am always getting my rear handed to me.

Re: Ed Borden: Innovating Physics Gameplay - Red Faction: Guerrilla

Gldm — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:32:20 -0000

So... it's basically an evolution of Red Faction 1 from 2001, where you could make your own nice strategic little routes by blowing holes in the walls. Only a few twists since RF1 let you destroy terrain but not really bring down major structures, and Guerrilla lets you bring down structures but not really damage terrain much.

I've been saying physics comes after graphics for about 9 years now. After proper physics (still a LONG way to go, most stuff is just fluff and not gameplay like you mentioned), AI will follow.

An AI can only be really smart and reactive to the world if it can understand the world. For that the world needs physical simulation. You can't expect an AI to know not to take cover behind a cardboard box instead of a concrete wall until your engine can model a difference between cardboard and concrete.

Re: Ed Borden: Real Innovation is a Change in Usage Behavior

Ed Borden — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:29:18 -0000

I love the product, for sure! I think the concept can reach far
beyond the "home PC" market that you guys have targeted, but it's
definitely a good place to start. I could see something very similar
as a perfect product for the internet cafe-type environment.

Re: Ed Borden: Real Innovation is a Change in Usage Behavior

James A. Gardner — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:46:15 -0000

Wonderfully insightful post, Ed. Thanks for sharing this.

Without innovation, consumers have few if any real choices about what's right/best for them. Life's pretty boring when that happens!

Learn more about litl @ http://litl.com or follow us on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/litl

James @ litl

Re: Ed Borden: Smaller Business Doesn't Automatically Equal More Agile Business

hbombers — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:08:26 -0000

totally agree. I think small companies DO have 1 thing going "For" them though that is inherent in being small.

Fewer levels of management.

Because of this, usually decisions can be made faster, but certainly with fewer people having to say "yes" than in bigger companies.

Re: Ed Borden : PWNING 9-5: AMD Case Study: How NOT to use Social Media

jmacofearth — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:10:19 -0000

I think Patrick's callout to Intel was rather clever. PM does use social media extensively. There were Intel people at SXSW. And quite frankly I don't think the current battery reporting tools have any basis in reality.

I've written a post in response to the AMD/Intel feud. I think we should see a showdown/smackdown on this issue. Fact is Intel chips seem to do well in idle mode and that's pretty much what the MobileMark 2007 stats are. Minimally lit screen, low processor use. Most of us have screens a maximum brightness and are doing Internet, Video and wireless all at full power. The MobileMark 2007 doesn't even come close to that world. So no wonder Intel computers are claiming 5 - 8 hours of battery life. I guess my MBP could get it's advertised 5 hrs if I'd turn 90% of the computer off.

I think battery specs need to get real. And I think Patrick Moorhead has thrown down the gauntlet. Will Intel answer? Unknown. Is this a good use of Social Media? I think it's a perfect use of keeping things transparent and real.

@jmacofearth

http://bit.ly/batterylife

Re: Ed Borden: Blizzard + Valve, Champions of PC Gaming, Turn eeevviilll

Droniac — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 03:57:19 -0000

Okay, according to recent interviews (IncGamers, Gossipgamers) the StarCraft 2 story is somewhat different:

StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty is the main game, the Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos if you will. Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void are expansion packs that will require Wings of Liberty in order to be played, just like The Frozen Throne. I'd say this drastically increases the likelihood of them being published with expansion pack price tags.

As for Battle.Net subscriptions. In a recent interview with IncGamers (last week), they've said that playing StarCraft 2 and future games on Battle.Net will remain free. But apparently they are thinking about adding in micro payments for additional features (such as hosting a custom tournament or league through Battle.Net.). I hope they don't go overboard with this.

Re: Ed Borden: Blizzard + Valve, Champions of PC Gaming, Turn eeevviilll

Marshall — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:40:23 -0000

i would hope the starcraft 2 battle.net sub will be cheaper than wow unless they plan on adding lots of content. cause i hate paying subs for games like an rts or fps with wow it wasent hard to see where they come up with that figure, your paying for server repairs and they add raids and other user content so much it's easy to see the price that comes with it.

Re: Ed Borden: Blizzard + Valve, Champions of PC Gaming, Turn eeevviilll

Droniac — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:55:07 -0000

I signed the LAN in StarCraft 2 petition, along with roughly 35000 other people. I doubt Blizzard will listen, but they should. Even if they make it so you can play over LAN as long as you're logged into Battle.Net, you'd still need an internet connection and that is not always easy to come by.

I mean, come on... StarCraft 2 without LAN support is like a WarCraft game without Orcs!

They did recently claim that the expansion packs (the SC2 games released after Wings of Liberty) will probably be priced at an expansion pack price point. I'm not entirely convinced, because they'd have to convince Activision too... and if there is a horrible publisher out there, then it's Activision. They're the new EA now that EA has gone all 'innovative' and 'high quality' and 'activation-DRM-free', whereas Activision has gone 'sequel', 'sequel', 'expansion pack'.

I don't think Activision will stand for stand-alone expansion packs that big (equally large singleplayer campaign to Wings of Liberty and revamped multiplayer for each installment) being published at expansion pack price points.

As for Left 4 Dead 2: I was thoroughly disappointed with the announcement. Then the gameplay videos and previews came... and Left 4 Dead 2 is starting to sound cool. But, what about my full-price original L4D? Sure, we've got mods now, but we didn't exactly get value for our money from Valve this time now did we? Five campaigns, one extra map, one additional game mode and six guns?

I'll still buy L4D2 damn it, but I hope they do something to appease us 'oldschool' (like way back last year) L4D players as well. Give us a discount on purchasing L4D2 or something. Updating L4D will be of no use, because everyone will be over at L4D2 come this November anyway.

Re: Ed Borden: Blizzard + Valve, Champions of PC Gaming, Turn eeevviilll

Sean — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:27:34 -0000

Good stuff.

I actually wasnt a huge fan of L4D, I liked it, I thought it was interesting, but it just didnt thrill me to the extent the editors raved about. I think they're on the right track though, cooperative gameplay is the right thing to do.

I never got the impression it was an incomplete game though. I absolutely love Nazi Zombies though.

One the other hand, what I do miss is the lack of a mod community doing interesting things. Where'd the mod community go? They all get jobs? heh.

Re: Ed Borden: NVIDIA, Run, Don't Walk, From x86

Ed Borden — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:55:45 -0000

Well, wait a second. I never said x86 is dead, because I don't agree with that at all. I said NVIDIA should walk away from it and focus on ARM/TEGRA

Re: Ed Borden: NVIDIA, Run, Don't Walk, From x86

Mad dog — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 02:48:50 -0000

Right on Ed. X86 is dead...how the hell is the X86 architecture going to fit in a smart phone?

Re: Ed Borden: The Inevitable Bleak Future of PhysX

Xenovore — Tue, 19 May 2009 18:52:20 -0000

Coming back late to this thread, but I'll leave my final $0.02:

Quote: "Oh, but Cuda/OpenCL aren't aimed at gaming anyway."
In the context of this blog, which IS about gaming, we are primarily concerned with how NVidia's policies regarding CUDA/OpenCL will affect gaming, particularly PhysX. So while it's super-neato that you can do all that other junk with CUDA/OpenCL, we really don't care. =P

Quote: "Great, and we don't need proprietary API's for that stuff either."
Totally agree. As a developer, I absolutely do not want to program for 3 different APIs when developing an application, be it a game or otherwise. A proprietary API should only be a stop-gap solution and should be phased out ASAP in favor of a platform-agnostic API.

Re: Ed Borden: The Inevitable Bleak Future of PhysX

mad dog — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:27:15 -0000

@Scali

Totally agree with you.

Typical of Ed and other bloggers.

Re: Ed Borden: The Inevitable Bleak Future of PhysX

Scali — Thu, 14 May 2009 11:09:44 -0000

You need proprietary APIs if you actually want to get things done. But we already went over that.
It's easy to talk after-the-fact, but it's because of nVidia delivering the G80 and Cuda that we actually had a good GPGPU solution to start from. ATi, Intel and others are just lifting along on nVidia's hard work. They didn't do anything to put GPGPU firmly on the map.
It's not as black-and-white as "we don't want proprietary stuff".

Re: Ed Borden: The Inevitable Bleak Future of PhysX

Ed Borden — Thu, 14 May 2009 10:59:59 -0000

Great, and we don't need proprietary API's for that stuff either.

Re: Ed Borden: The Inevitable Bleak Future of PhysX

Scali — Thu, 14 May 2009 10:54:31 -0000

Oh, but Cuda/OpenCL aren't aimed at gaming anyway.
They're aimed at parallel processing in general. Physics just happens to be a thing that can be accelerated through GPGPU, and is often used in games.
Cuda/OpenCL are about WAY more than just that. They are very interesting for supercomputing purposes, especially when you are using big problems with linear algebra. In those areas it's not a problem to use hardware-specific solutions. Supercomputers generally are very unique anyway, and porting code from one supercomputer to the next is a big problem.

And they can also accelerate things like photo/video editing or encoding. Probably more 'everyday' tasks as time progresses... Namely, your GPU can do certain mathematical operations VERY quickly. Things like FFT's and such. This could be useful for things like image or speech recognition etc... and who knows what new uses we can think of if we suddenly had much faster and more powerful ways to analyse audio, video etc.