EBE Chapter 116, "Pinball," is still a lie?
Chapter 116, "Pinball," is still a lie?
Chapter 116, "Pinball," is still a lie?
"Well, that's theoretically correct, isn't it?"
Vivian put down the control panel and turned off the TV. "But it's actually impossible to do."
She immediately poured cold water on the situation.
There will always be a gap between ideals and reality.
This difference is particularly pronounced in graphics cards.
"I understand, it's a problem with video memory, right?"
Lin Lixin sighed. In the end, it all comes down to capacity.
Regardless of the era, memory is always one of the most expensive components in digital products.
"Even with 256 colors, we still need over 300KB of video memory at a resolution of 640.480."
"That's right," Vivian nodded regretfully, "and if we want to make it a general-purpose graphics card that can also be used in PCs, the transmission bandwidth is not enough."
At a resolution of 640.480, the amount of communication data for 16 colors has reached the limit of the ISA bus.
It's fine if it's on a highly integrated architecture like NovaBo, but if it's made into a general-purpose graphics expansion card according to Lin Lixin's idea, then it will be troublesome.
This situation was not significantly improved until the introduction of modern slot specifications such as PCI.
"The money required to develop NAND technology is no less than what's needed here—"
Lin Lixin rubbed his temples.
The semiconductor industry is incredibly expensive. Even though it has become a leading game company in the US and has captured a large market share in Japan, it still seems like a greenhorn when it comes to the bottomless pit of semiconductors.
"I'll figure out a way to handle the video memory issue later. Let's get this specification implemented first. Where's Dr. Jim?"
"At SGI, he said he wanted to use the RISC architecture to make a workstation."
"Okay, 16 colors it is. Let's get the first batch of VGA-compliant graphics cards produced as soon as possible."
Lin Lixin pondered for a moment.
All you need to do is adjust this specification to support both 16 colors at 640p and 256 colors at 320p.
This level is more than enough for current game consoles.
To deal with IBM, the blue giant, they need to act quickly.
You need to seize the right to define things before the other party can react.
To achieve this goal, it is clearly necessary to directly issue ISA slot graphics cards that can be plug-and-play with PCs.
"Let's call this product line Radeon, Nova-Radeon."
""
The new star laser dragon actually has that vibe.
Of course, a general-purpose graphics card needs more than just hardware.
Lin Lixin had sent Carmack here a long time ago, naturally to prepare for this part.
It must be able to provide a standard call library for the DOS system.
This is also a prerequisite for OpenGL.
After arranging all this, Lin Lixin got up to leave.
"No, no, I almost forgot about the important business we came here for."
He slapped his forehead. "I need an MMC enhancement chip for the new game."
[Thoughts on playing Pinball: Experience with Game Physics ++]
[Thoughts on playing Pinball: Experience with Game Physics ++]
If there's one Nintendo title that Lin Li-hsin dreams of owning, the first answer would definitely be Pinball I, which was released in early 84.
This was one of the earliest games on the Famicom (FC) and also one of the games released on the NES.
Its developer, HAL Laboratory, is in many ways a direct descendant of Nintendo.
The developers behind later titles like Kirby and Nimbus were all involved in the project. Even Satoru Iwata, who would later succeed Hiroshi Yamauchi as president, was still studying at HAL Laboratory at that time.
"Pinball" is one of Cong Ge's works.
Lin Lixin stared at the marbles bouncing back and forth between the mechanisms on the screen, constantly setting higher scores, his face full of suspicion.
"That's really strange. How did the NES, with its crappy hardware, manage to achieve this level of physical realism?"
It's worth noting that the NES's processor was a Ricoh 6502 with a clock speed of only 1.8MHz, which was far inferior in performance to the NovaBo.
With that thing's performance, even a 2D physics simulation wouldn't be this smooth.
"Does Brother Cong also have some kind of advanced technology?"
If he were to design it with his current skills, Lin Lixin believes he could create a physical simulation effect far exceeding that of "Pinball".
But he couldn't make these effects consume so little performance.
It's important to understand that "Double Dribble" has a total of 10 characters moving at high speeds, so there simply isn't enough performance redundancy to do a lot of physics calculations.
【Ding! 】
[Acquired Skill]:
[The most ingenious trick]: [Master basic game physics and gain a 1.4x increase in hardware-related attribute growth rate]
"Um?"
This was the first time Lin Lixin had such a strange feeling.
Despite having improved his understanding of game physics, he still had no clue how to solve the problem at hand.
"wrong."
He stared intently at the marble, watching the moment it was knocked away by the movable baffle, and suddenly a sense of unease flashed through his mind.
Perhaps due to a more refined understanding of game physics, Lin Lixin's view of *Pinball*...
The physical effects suddenly weren't as perfect.
It is riddled with bizarre flaws.
The marbles are too rigid in their operation.
Lin Lixin originally thought that the low operating speed was due to insufficient NES functionality.
This situation often occurs even on NovaBo.
But as he observed more closely, he actually noticed something.
This is not a performance issue, but rather a problem stemming from the physics simulation of Pinball itself.
Every movement of a marble may seem free, as if it moves randomly within the pinball table, but upon closer observation, you will find that each change in its state is exactly the same.
"No wonder it was called a scam, so that's how it is—"
I completely misunderstood; "Pinball" didn't do any simulations based on physics formulas at all.
In essence, it's actually a table lookup!
Lin Lixin pulled out a notebook from the side and quickly made notes on it.
"Slow rolling, fast rolling, free fall, bounce —"
The speed of the marble is predefined in different states.
"If it's on a slope, increase it by a fixed value —"
"When it hits the buffer and barrier, take the normal direction —"
"No, even the collision detection is fake??"
The deeper Lin Lixin delved into the research, the greater his astonishment became.
This seemingly perfect physics simulation is actually a magic trick carefully prepared for the player.
Pinball uses minimal computation to create an effect that can fool all players.
"This is the wisdom of the ancients, truly ingenious."
In this era where performance and capacity are extremely valuable, only these whimsical and ingenious techniques can enable them to achieve these seemingly impossible effects.
This is precisely the ability that Lin Lixin, a newcomer accustomed to modern development, easily overlooks.
"I've been busy with hardware lately, I've really gotten myself into a rut."
Lin Lixin suddenly realized.
Regardless of its process or how it is implemented at the underlying level.
Video games are ultimately created to serve the players.
As long as the final result meets expectations, the way it is implemented is completely irrelevant.
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