Eddy Luten

id Software: bye OpenGL, bye Linux

John Carmack and the id Software company have always been great supporters of the OpenGL Graphics API. Alas, major development with the API stops here for the game developer.

id Software has been working on a new game engine that would “revolutionize” the gaming industry and provide many advanced features. One of its main features is that it can support a constant 60fps on console systems. It was also announced that their new engine will run on: PC, Mac, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Eh, are we missing something important here?

XNA Game Studio 2.0 Announced

Finally Microsoft has announced the second version of their XNA Game Studio. The best thing? It will work with all versions of Visual Studio 2005. Finally. Read the full story here.

DirectX 10: Is it worth upgrading to Vista for?

As a developer (and gamer) you always want the latest gadgets and DirectX 10 seems to be one of these gadgets that you just “need to have”.

But does it justify spending much money for an upgrade?

What does DirectX 10 have that DirectX 9 doesn’t? According to some technology demos - not so much. Ok, some special effects but what about the rest? A game isn’t made out of SFX (although it seems to become a trend).

Programmer's Block

I guess writers have this, but now I have it with coming up with new programs. I just can’t think of anything. I’ve been wasting my time reading many programming books on Agile, Design Concepts etc. but that didn’t give me any ideas either. Some knowledge, yes, but inspiration, no.

Bah.

Google Music Trends

This is probably one of the coolest ideas that I’ve seen on the Internet in a loooong long time. Google Music Trends is a small program that you download that interacts with your music player and uploads statistics to Google. At the moment the most listened to song is “In the end” by Linkin Park. Of course this has to change ;)

Again, participate!

ATi too slow or NVIDIA too fast?

In November of last year, NVIDIA released its latest flagship graphics card chipset, the 8800 / G80. This chipset featured the first full featured DirectX 10 support ever conceived and was (still is at the moment) the only DirectX 10 card on the market.

So when will the other giant, ATi, catch up? According to rumor, ATi is planning to release its latest chipset (R600) in the first quarter of 2007, more precisely an early March launch.

Microsoft.com’s Recent Update

Conforming with the Ajax/Web 2.0 trend, Microsoft has updated their Microsoft.com homepage to a sleeker looking page stuffed with DHTML goodies. Yet as with most media-rich websites it’s very slow on older computers (probably the one you have in your office also ;) ) so it becomes quite tedious to navigate through.

One good thing about all this is that the website works well in Firefox, you’d think they’d screw it up but they didn’t. Gotta give some kudos for that one.

Another Saturday: Firefox, Zune and more

First Alpha release of Firefox 3

And you can get it: Here from Mozilla.org if you’re interested in trying it out. I am, I’ll report on it later.

Zune Again

I was actually wondering if anybody has actually seen a “Zune” since the introduction on November 14th this year. I haven’t, and I’ve seen one commercial so far on the TV. Even on the internet, I haven’t seen many things yet (or maybe I’m just on the wrong sites). I have some colleagues that didn’t even know what “a Zune” is and didn’t bother to find out.

Microsoft's Autumn Marketing

Is it me or has this last season been the most productive one at Microsoft in a long time? First we get the new version of the DirectX SDK and now we finally have the final version of Internet Explorer 7, not to mention the plethora of CTPs that came out the last couple of weeks..

So, what’s going on? More marketing on MS’ side? Let’s hope so since free software is great - even though most products expire next year and it’s not free in the manner of beer and speech.

MSDN Event Boca Raton Review: 10/17/2006

Today me and one of my co-workers (not my boss as I announced earlier) went to the MSDN Event in Boca Raton. This was my first time at one of these events so think of this post as a first-timer. There were three sessions discussed at ther Event that I’d like to go over with you.

Introduction

Because me and my colleague were at the Event a tad early, we were treated with a couple of tracks from Jethro Tull’s live album at the Isle of Wight. Always nice. These tracks were chosen by our presenter. We also watched some Microsoft propaganda from http://www.escapeyesterworld.com/ .. it was funny though. Our presenter was Mr. Russ Fustino, who introduced himself to the crowd in person wearing a yellow hard-hat and red suspenders while his theme-song (yes, a song bout Russ, not by Jethro) was playing in the background. Unconventional? Maybe. But it’s an attention-getter for sure.