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Old 05-05-2007, 05:28 AM   #541
jpjoe
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Hi guys, I'm new here and I live in the Philippines!

Mr. Sachs, your work is truly superb. The first time I saw your s.saver, my jaw literally dropped -and that's coming from a person who owns and maintains a real reef tank. I'm glad I found your website.

Goodluck!
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Old 05-05-2007, 07:35 AM   #542
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"Welcome aboard, Matey!"
Write paranormal mysteries. Six books so far.
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Old 05-05-2007, 11:09 AM   #543
Jim Sachs
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Tim and jpjoe - thanks for the kind words. I think you will be happy with the 3.0 version when it's done. Every aspect of the program will be greatly improved. With each item I add, I go back and look at the current version and wonder how I could have accepted something so primitive.

Right now I'm working on the bubbles. No one has ever really done saltwater bubbles right, including me. The bubbles I created for my Freshwater beta turned out extremely well, but in saltwater tanks the column is really more of a foam than recognizable bubbles. Common sense would indicate that individually rendering thousands of tiny specks would add far too much overhead - but maybe not. Maybe if it's done on the video card using a Shader, the overhead would be manageable. Only experimentation will tell.
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Old 05-05-2007, 11:34 AM   #544
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You've seen this before, right Jim?

I can't help but feel that people like me with very modern systems are going to have to wait until MA4 to see something that our rigs could handle today... How scalable are the graphics going to be? I mean, Half-Life 2 can run on DX7 hardware if it has to, it doesn't look as nice but it runs ok that way. I hope MA3 can be the same way, it'll run on average Joe's machine but it'll blow your mind on non-so-average Joe's über-box (remember, average Joe pays the bills, but not-so-Joe brings in the new customers )...

Just thinking about a particle simulation of thousands of tiny bubbles all moving around a photo realistic aquarium with GPU accelerated fluid dynamic physics gives me goosebumps...
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Old 05-05-2007, 11:59 AM   #545
Jim Sachs
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My machines won't even come close to running that "Box of Smoke" demo. You'd think that a program from those high-powered programmers at nVidia would at least exit cleanly if it encountered a system without the required hardware, but in fact it crashes. Makes me wonder what chance a borderline-senile, untrained software author has.

I've ordered a GeForce FX 5200, one of the few PCI cards with Pixel Shaders. Should be here on Monday.
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Old 05-05-2007, 01:36 PM   #546
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Noo! Remember we had a theoretical discussion about video cards and you at first got recommendations for all sorts of PCI-Express and AGP cards? I must've told you the 6200 was the PCI card to get. It's substantially better than the 5200.

/Tiny Too Late
Thanks to Morgan, Tiny Snapshots is up and running again with "Tiny Järvafält" as the latest addition – Go have a look and tell me what you think.

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent.
I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says,
'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.'
I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.
" /Robert Oppenheimer on witnessing the first thermonuclear detonation in history.
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Old 05-05-2007, 02:27 PM   #547
Jim Sachs
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I thought the 6200 was PCI-E only. http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2238
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Old 05-05-2007, 02:42 PM   #548
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But, Jim, - you had a 5200 in 2003, when I bought mine! ... I now have a 6800, - it's brilliant! (It's AGP, but also available PCI-E)


EDIT... Ah! - You now need PCI, not PCI-E or AGP, yes?

/Also too late!
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Old 05-05-2007, 03:13 PM   #549
Jim Sachs
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Yes, both my machines are plain-old PCI. The 5200 that I had on the ASUS motherboard was an AGP version.
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Old 05-05-2007, 03:21 PM   #550
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Nah, that was just at first when the AGP version of the 5200 was still selling so they kept it PCI-E until the 5200 AGP stopped selling.

/Tiny Exchange?
Thanks to Morgan, Tiny Snapshots is up and running again with "Tiny Järvafält" as the latest addition – Go have a look and tell me what you think.

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent.
I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says,
'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.'
I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.
" /Robert Oppenheimer on witnessing the first thermonuclear detonation in history.
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Old 05-05-2007, 03:31 PM   #551
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Do you still have this machine? - If so, that A7N8X, (which I have), has an AGP slot, and therefore will take a 6800, or any number of AGP cards, I should think.


Edit. - looks like that has just been answered!
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Old 05-05-2007, 04:02 PM   #552
Jim Sachs
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No, I don't have that machine any more. It was eaten by a virus. First the hard drive, then the motherboard, then the CPU, then the new motherboard, then the new CPU. At that point, I gave up and bought an HP.
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Old 05-05-2007, 04:21 PM   #553
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Smart move. Those aren't as tasty.
Thanks to Morgan, Tiny Snapshots is up and running again with "Tiny Järvafält" as the latest addition – Go have a look and tell me what you think.

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent.
I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says,
'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.'
I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.
" /Robert Oppenheimer on witnessing the first thermonuclear detonation in history.
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Old 05-05-2007, 04:50 PM   #554
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I just tried putting in 320 individual bubbles, and there was no measurable slowdown. This may work...
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Old 05-05-2007, 04:55 PM   #555
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OK, at 640 bubbles on the screen, it's starting to look pretty good - and still no slowdown.
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Old 05-05-2007, 05:05 PM   #556
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This is on your integrated graphics chip rig? Great! What happens when you throw in ten instances of your test fish?
Thanks to Morgan, Tiny Snapshots is up and running again with "Tiny Järvafält" as the latest addition – Go have a look and tell me what you think.

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent.
I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says,
'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.'
I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.
" /Robert Oppenheimer on witnessing the first thermonuclear detonation in history.
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Old 05-05-2007, 05:20 PM   #557
Jim Sachs
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No fish yet. Getting 60 fps at 1920x1200x16, and 30 fps in 32-bit mode. The bubbles look very good at 60 fps, but at 30 fps they have a "stop-motion" strobe look. Needs improvement, but I have some ideas.
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Old 05-05-2007, 05:27 PM   #558
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Of course you do. It's your level of ambition which is so amazing...
Thanks to Morgan, Tiny Snapshots is up and running again with "Tiny Järvafält" as the latest addition – Go have a look and tell me what you think.

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent.
I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says,
'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.'
I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.
" /Robert Oppenheimer on witnessing the first thermonuclear detonation in history.
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Old 05-05-2007, 08:09 PM   #559
drfish
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Originally posted by Jim Sachs:
My machines won't even come close to running that "Box of Smoke" demo. You'd think that a program from those high-powered programmers at nVidia would at least exit cleanly if it encountered a system without the required hardware, but in fact it crashes. Makes me wonder what chance a borderline-senile, untrained software author has.  
Sorry Jim, I linked to the description but was assuming you'd look at the video after you read it. Did you check that out? And the tech demos usually yell at you before even trying to run if you don't have the right hardware.
I don't watch commercials.
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Old 05-05-2007, 09:12 PM   #560
Jim Sachs
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Those kinds of demos just depress me. That kind of programming requires math, and I haven't got any. Anything beyond addition, subtraction, or (occasionally) multiplication is beyond me. Division is right out.
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