Memory, Then and Now

General Discussions
#1

Hey, everybody!

I just wanted to get some words and opinions from you guys regarding memory and CPU usage and how they are programmed, comparing present use and the use of, say, programmers in the 70s and 80s who were tasked with performing the incredible feat of creating games out of ridiculously small amounts of RAM and with little enough CPU power to do anything intensive. I’m doing a lot of reading, and though I’ve known about the disparities for a long time, I’m only now able to really appreciate the hard work that it must have been. I realize that many game programmers now probably take what they’re doing for granted and abuse the fact that they have so much RAM and processing to work with. It’s amazing to think of the potential we have now on modern-day systems! Anyways, your thoughts! What would you suggest, as a general pointer, for someone trying to make the most out of their system? How can we go about doing with our computers what programmers back then were doing with theirs to create gaming technology?

Best regards,
Colton

#2

Developing on small amount RAM device is challenging. Back there developers did lot tricks and wrote code “deeper” efficiently as possible to even put Doom on a floopy. Nowday we have lot of higher API library which take care of everything, we just being ignorant to what happened under hood wheter useful or not.

However this point shouldn’t prevent you in developing. This point should be considered at your optimation part (which is last part) of dev. It’s pretty tolerable since today RAM is cheap. You can even get free.

#3

Oh, aye, I never meant it would keep me from developing; on the contrary, I find it inspiring, if anything!

That link is pretty neat too; I suspect it’s some sort of RAM offloading site that handles the load for you to give the impression of more RAM? Seems like it wouldn’t quite work very efficiently, but it’s an interesting idea I suppose!

Colton

#4

It… is… a joke. :clue:

#5

Okay, clearly I can’t catch dry humor on these forums ::slight_smile: I’m sorry! XD

#6

The site is also mentioning on the footer 8) Some people sure have lot of free time and money for make something like that.

#7

Eh, the website looks like it was made by a 12-year old who was bored in class, so who knows :stuck_out_tongue:

#8

I have never facepalmed harder before in my life…

http://pinkie.ponychan.net/chan/files/src/133996023010.png

;D

#9

I’m actually more ashamed because I know why that’s ridiculous. :’( I overanalyzed it without really reading through the site (clearly I missed the joke text at the bottom of the page!) and thought they were going for some sort of virtual RAM thing or other. I mean, even VRAM would be faster on the user’s real computer, but who’s to stop people from coming up with their own gimmicks? :stuck_out_tongue:

It’s okay, I know I’ll never let this one be lived down ;D The horse is already decapitated, but I’m trying to bring him back to life. :emo:

#10

Some thought it’s a software to unlock memory addresses. You know, the fact is all size of USB drive in market are lie, they’re actually bigger.

#11

See, now that I’ve humiliated myself, I’m scared to take anything for granted :persecutioncomplex:

#12

LoL that’s true. Some brands of 2GB USB stick can be unlocked to 8 and so on.

#13

Well then, I learned something very awesome today and will try that whenever I use a flash drive again :smiley:

#14

Will everyday if you use internet right :point:

Look, I’m great on leading a thread to out of topic :yawn:

#15

It’s okay, we’re in General Discussion :] I’m sure this hasn’t ever happened in any other thread in this forum…

#16

ReBirth, you are on a trolling roll! High five! ;D

#17

Dunno if it’s sarcasm or not ;D

#18

That’s obviously wrong…please tell me you’re not serious. I even googled this to make sure I’m not being stupid myself… :persecutioncomplex:

#19

Actually I havent tried it yet, but one of my friend. I dont believe it (I never said it works right?).

#20

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Errr… :clue: