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[ShunterAlhena]

quote:Originally posted by Dasleah:
<STRONG>Isn't it a bit rich to criticise Toady's coding abilities when we have no idea what the code actually looks like? It's like criticising a winemaker without ever tasting the wine.

The game works, and it works well. Complaining because Toady doesn't throw around enough programming buzzwords (*ahem* multithreading) is a bit strange.</STRONG>

I wasn't trying to criticize him. Definitely not in the sense of "bashing". If you look up my other posts you'll find that I have my own generous amount of DF fanboyhood in me.      I am just genuinely interested in the above issues and what other people think about them.

The general consensus so far seems to be that nobody cares whether the code is structured or optimal or planned or not; the game works and Toady is half-God. Which, I think, is an uninformative (from an IT engineering viewpoint) but satisfactory result.  

[ May 12, 2008: Message edited by: ShunterAlhena ]

[Emerald Hawk]

quote:Originally posted by Glaughdram:
<STRONG>As of now, the art of multithreading is in its infancy. Any demonstration of it's efficient use is an anomoly. Multithreading is now the greatest hurdle in program optimization, and far from being an established practice.</STRONG>

This may be true for now, but I feel we are right at a period of transition at the moment.  As recently as two years ago, id Software's Quake 3 was practically the only major game to be multithreaded.  Now though, several games ported from the Xbox 360 including BioShock support multiple threads.  Supreme Commander is also multithreaded, and its performance benefits greatly from having a multi-core CPU.  This is because the pathfinding for the hundreds of units in SupCom can be broken up into multiple threads with great efficiency.

I know first hand what a hellish experience writing multi-threaded code can be, but I do hope that someday DF supports it, somehow.  There are many techniques available to do it safely, and as evidenced by SupCom, pathfinding code in particular is a great candidate for multithreading.  Edit:  There are many benchmarks for SupCom that show the benefits of adding extra cores, like this one here.

Either way, what I really respect is Toady's full time commitment to his goal.   That takes a lot of guts.  Even a brilliant programmer with great ideas can't do what Toady has done without his kind of dedication.

[ May 12, 2008: Message edited by: Emerald Hawk ]

[Sindai]

quote:Originally posted by Dasleah:
<STRONG>The game works, and it works well. Complaining because Toady doesn't throw around enough programming buzzwords (*ahem* multithreading) is a bit strange.</STRONG>

Calling multithreading a buzzword is pretty stupid. Unless something completely unexpected happens to CPU architecture and manufacturing in the near future multithreaded programs are simply going to become a fact of life. If DF ever reaches the point where performance becomes unacceptable on one core (and that may never happen) Toady will either have to figure it out or stop adding new features.

[thvaz]

I don't think Toady's code is a mess - look at his dev_notes. He is amazingly organized.
And he is a mathematician - programming, creative programming is mostly about mathematical logic.

[Cajoes]

Multiple cores are overrated anyway.

[Dasleah]

quote:Calling multithreading a buzzword is pretty stupid. Unless something completely unexpected happens to CPU architecture and manufacturing in the near future multithreaded programs are simply going to become a fact of life. If DF ever reaches the point where performance becomes unacceptable on one core (and that may never happen) Toady will either have to figure it out or stop adding new features.

It is a buzzword. It's one of those things idiots throw around to make themselves sound smarter without realising what it means to inflate their ego, alongside such buzzwords as 'immersion' and 'emergent gameplay'.

I'm not saying that multithreading itself is a bad thing, but I'm just sick of people saying 'multithreading will make it BETTAR' without having a clue as to why or what's involved in making something run on multiple threads.

[ May 12, 2008: Message edited by: Dasleah ]

[SirPenguin]

Multithreading is a buzzword because it explains what it does exactly, so one doesn't need to know the nitty gritty to know it DOES bring improvements, as long as a program takes advantage of it, of course.

You know what a bad buzzword is? "64 bits". Too many people get caught up in thinking it's better, and find they have trouble running basic programs and drivers.

[Puzzlemaker]

quote:Originally posted by SirPenguin:
<STRONG>Multithreading is a buzzword because it explains what it does exactly, so one doesn't need to know the nitty gritty to know it DOES bring improvements, as long as a program takes advantage of it, of course.

You know what a bad buzzword is? "64 bits". Too many people get caught up in thinking it's better, and find they have trouble running basic programs and drivers.</STRONG>

This (wo)man speaks the truth.

[sinoth]

Get over yourself Dasleah.  Multithreading isn't that complicated.

- Take a task.
- Try to split it up into parts.
- See if the parts can be run at the same time.
- If they can, stick them in threads.  If not, oh well.

Sure, the actual implementation can get nasty, but some things lend themselves more easily to being multithreaded.  It's likely parts of the worldgen could be sped up with threading, especially the terrain gen.  I'm sure Toady will cross this bridge sometime in the future when his history process takes weeks to complete on a normal PC xD

Also, sorry to break this to you SirPenguin, but the time to be on the anti 64-bit bandwagon was about 3 years ago.  Windows x64 is mature now, and rarely runs into driver or program issues.  I say this as someone who has used x64 from its horrible, buggy birth to how it is now.

And why oh why are we bashing multiple cores?  I can see arguing that a few years ago, the price difference of a dual core CPU was too high for the minimal gain, but that just isn't the case anymore.  Yea, you'd be better off with a single powerful core for most games, but its likely you do things on your computer other than gaming.  When you do, having that extra core to handle operating system calls is extremely handy... the biggest gain I've seen from multiple core PCs is OS snappiness.

[Puzzlemaker]

quote:Originally posted by sinoth:
<STRONG>
Also, sorry to break this to you SirPenguin, but the time to be on the anti 64-bit bandwagon was about 3 years ago.  Windows x64 is mature now, and rarely runs into driver or program issues.  I say this as someone who has used x64 from its horrible, buggy birth to how it is now.</STRONG>

Only real problem is backwards compatibility.

[SirPenguin]

I'm glad to see it's matured. I first got into it about 2 years ago (or so) with a 64 bit Ubuntu partition. Needless to say, I could barely install Flash. It was a frustrating experience. When I put Vista on this machine, I had a choice, and x86 has yet to serve me wrong.

Oh, and I'm a guy...<_<

[sinoth]

quote:Originally posted by SirPenguin:
<STRONG>I'm glad to see it's matured. I first got into it about 2 years ago (or so) with a 64 bit Ubuntu partition. Needless to say, I could barely install Flash. It was a frustrating experience. When I put Vista on this machine, I had a choice, and x86 has yet to serve me wrong.</STRONG>

Completely understand there.  You made a good choice with Vista... its drivers are a pain even without the x64 predicament.  Also, Ubuntu used to be -terrible- with x64 support... you had to keep around toolchains for x86 to run half the stuff, and it usually ended in a great big mess.  The new release (Hardy) fixed a lot of these issues.. I installed x64 and haven't run into trouble yet.  Even got flash working  

[Slappy Moose]

Maybe Toady is just a prodigy.

He did basically create the best game ever from scratch, and it is still a damn alpha.

[umiman]

Hate to rain on your parade, but this is the best game ever:

[Neonivek]

I am afraid if this topic goes on too much longer this will happen

Toady: "Well I decided since the game is already the greatest game ever, that it is complete. Also I am a genius, but you already knew that didn't you?"

*Toady tries to leave his room but his Ego has inflated too much for that*

This topic is hillariously very compliment based towards Toady... and it kinda drives me nuts... Don't ask me why (I don't know why) but I find it wrong to praise someone like this...