Re: [VANILLA-LIST:3160] Developers Must Play

[Dave Ahn <ahn@vec.wfubmc.edu>]

> > Which bit do you consider difficult?  We have the tools.  We have the
> > CPU and disk resources.

Not really.  The process isn't difficult.  It's that doing it at 10 frames
a second will be impossible on normal machines.  Even if we rely on the
hardware to get a direct frame buffer dump at 8 bits per pixel, we're talking
about 1024*768 = 786432 bytes per frame.  That's 7.8MB per second.  Don't
even bother considering encoding to GIF/MPEG unless you have dedicated
hardware that will do real-time compression.

> It would make a lot more sense to build the movie in the client using
> an actual movie format.

Only the fastest PCs are able to do real-time video encoding (MPEG, AVI,
whatever) without dedicated hardware.  Even then, a 90 minute game would
take up hundreds of MB.  The current Netrek packet based playback is much
more efficient and reasonable, so we should stick with improving that
system instead.

-- 
Dave Ahn <ahn@vec.wfubmc.edu>        |  "When you were born, you cried and the
                                     |  world rejoiced.  Try to live your life
Virtual Endoscopy Center             |  so that when you die, you will rejoice
Wake Forest Univ. School of Medicine |  and the world will cry."  -1/2 jj^2