Posted on by lhl
Posted on by lhl

Valve lets off steam over NVIDIA performance …and offers a new graphics benchmark – very interesting, ATI appears to kick NV3x ass in DX9 performance

See also: Gabe Newell Interview @ Gamers Depo

The next generation will basically bring the pixel and vertex shader flexibility to geometry, we’ll have many more passes per scene, and each pass will be doing more interesting stuff. We’ll be doing lots of image post-processing, we probably will do deferred rendering to some degree, and we’ll be doing tone mapping. Motion blur and depth of field will be used by lots of applications. Real-time radiosity may or may not be happening in this time frame. If we’re right about this, then Source should be a very good engine for taking advantage of these functions.

Posted on by lhl

What is $87 Billion Worth?

This $87 billion request is in addition to $79B already approved by Congress. This morning I was listening to Paul Wolfowitz being interviewed on NPR chiding the American public about needing to be committed and following through. You have to wonder about the thought process that allows someone to be able to say this with a straight face after having spent the previous year trying to convince everyone that a war in Iraq would be quick, painless, and cheap.

And of course, looking at these numbers again brings to mind the classic Eisenhower quote:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.