Trimesh-trimesh collider (wasRe[2]:[ODE]Triangle-boxcollidercontribution) (going OT)

[Jon Watte]

>  Isn't that just because Intel is putting the extreme
> 3D on everything (and then ppl go out and buy real 3d
> cards) ?

Certain graphics vendors would certainly like you to believe that, for sure :-)

However, the i865 chip set is cheaper to buy than the i865G, so most machines intended for systems with discrete graphics solutions don't have the Intel Extreme built-in. And the i865GL is cheaper than the i865G, because it lacks the pins for an AGP connector. Thus, that's what ends up in most of the cheap systems.

Then we have laptops. i855 is HUGE in the laptop market, and Radeon IGP is also big; neither has hardware transform, and neither is upgradeable. I haven't got hard numbers for laptop market share (vs desktops), but I'm hearing "about 40%" from more than one place. Looking at Best Buy, they spend AT LEAST that much of their shelf space on laptops, so it might be a growth segment, too.

Here's an analogy: A typical DVD customer might pay $99 for his DVD player, and then buy 25 DVDs for $19 each. (These are numbers I made up for illustration, as opposed to the graphics market share numbers.) Yes, there are $299 DVD players, but would you want to make a movie that could only be played on a $299 player? Just because someone buys a cheaper player ("PC" in the analogy) doesn't mean they're cheap on program material ("games" in the analogy).

But if your game requires pixel shader 2.0 and hardware vertex shaders, you're un-likely to find out what could have been, huh? :-)

The truth is that, with reasonably little effort, you can make your engine use vertex lighting plus single, or possibly double, texturing, using a lower poly count (throw away the highest-detailed LOD). That'll probably run OK on most systems sold today, as opposed to the high-poly seven-layer per-pixel shadowed monster version. Have your game come up with the appropriate settings for the hardware it runs on, and watch return rates go down and sell-through go up. What's not to like about that approach?

Cheers,

			/ h+