tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202507793705383029.post1615510274102416995..comments2023-10-26T01:41:49.462-07:00Comments on The home of a Very Grumpy Bunny: Why do Open-Licensed drivers matter?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08951185953504736035noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202507793705383029.post-1404798848269102182008-06-04T20:50:00.000-07:002008-06-04T20:50:00.000-07:00What a wonderful post.I have been trying to explai...What a wonderful post.<BR/><BR/>I have been trying to explain what you summarized in point five to several of my peers. Unfortunately, it appears that many of us have forgotten some of the most important lessons learned in school -- pay attention to history.<BR/><BR/>It wasn't that long ago that the 'dark ages' of video games were upon us. We had RPGs where the three dimensional worlds were scrobbled through one painful screen refresh at a time and blip blip blip were the trademarks of almost every graphical based engine.<BR/><BR/>Then it all changed.<BR/><BR/>A little game came along called Castle Wolfenstein. It was a huge step forward, but not quite as huge as its successor.<BR/><BR/>Doom pushed the limits of those old 386 and 486 chips at the time. A part of Doom's success relied upon using counter-mainstream techniques -- something entirely missing from our current culture. Part one was the 32 bit Watcom compiler to thunk into the wonderful world of 32 bit operation. The other was ModeX ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_X ).<BR/><BR/>Stumbling. Hacking. Experimenting. Finally poof -- the video game era was changed almost instantly overnight.<BR/><BR/>Amen to the opening of graphics cards. May the mainstream game developers see the potential of churning out some custom card-specific tweaks to deliver the same jaw dropping changes that Wolfenstein and Doom brought us.<BR/><BR/>With the openness we stand a very real chance of changing the gaming world once again. I'd be pretty certain that this time it would deliver even more of an adrenaline rush than the first time someone twiddled their Cirrus Logic card register to pop into a 16 bit colour mode.Troy James Sobotkahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03130293548922902325noreply@blogger.com