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    • #7409
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      An article that will no doubt raise a few smiles…

      Link: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4111/dirty_coding_tricks.php?print=1

      I think the "Programming anti-hero" is probably the dirtiest one in there, but I can’t imagine something like that not being found and removed WAY early in the project.

      and "My dog patches" is rough as guts, in fairness.

      B.

    • #44556
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      I’m sorry….what?? If you don’t do exactly that early in a project, you are going to have problems later on. The programming anti-hero is one of the greatest things you can do for your project.

    • #44558
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Omen

      Seriously? Setting rigid budgets and forcing everyone to stick them (artists and programmers alike) throughout the project, yeah, I totally get.

      But sneaking in a two meg heap alloc? I mean surely the guys profiling the hell out of their code (for days/weeks) or the art gang throwing out verts left, right and center, is not fair or equitable.

      Surely???

    • #44560
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Omen

      Seriously? Setting rigid budgets and forcing everyone to stick them (artists and programmers alike) throughout the project, yeah, I totally get.

      But sneaking in a two meg heap alloc? I mean surely the guys profiling the hell out of their code (for days/weeks) or the art gang throwing out verts left, right and center, is not fair or equitable.

      Surely???[/quote:d06f38235c]

      I’d like to think nowadays stealing 2 meg would be tracked. For example, we got one guy on my present game team whos just is to profile and track the game pretty closely, so if you do something like that I’d give it 2/3 days ( he doesnt track all day every day) and he’ll catch the culprit. As for some of the cheap hack to ship a game I can see what he means when its 4am and the master is to go to cert at 8am ;)

    • #44562
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      I stole 10Mb on my last game. So, so useful :)

    • #44563
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      I stole 10Mb on my last game. So, so useful :)[/quote:df236af1b0]

      The guy whos job to find that 10mb you stole should be fired.

      Unless you stole from audio.. Although what did you need 10 mb for that wasent budgeted to you.

    • #44564
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Ha, love the idea from article of putting "aside a nice block of memory to free up when it’s really needed."

      All the more room for easter eggs.

    • #44565
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      10 MB? What platform was that?

      Wow. But yeah, I think that’d be pretty hard not to notice at this stage, I mean especially if you have someone on your team profiling day-in, day-out. Unless Mr. Profiler is in "cahoots."

      But could this happen today, with all the profiling tools and memory managers out there? Could you bake that memory allocation into a lib early in the project and hope no one notices? Surely that would get flagged at some point???

      B.

    • #44569
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      I don’t think it’s a bad idea to horde some memory back… but I’d do it up front as part of the programming team plan. In those last few months you’ll probably need it. Resist pushes to eat into it anytime before then – it helps build character :)

      I’ve also heard of the tiny-million-poly-sphere hidden in a model by a coy artists (removed after loads of optimisations had been done to try improve performance). But it hardly speaks volumes for the optimisations if they didn’t see the issue.

    • #44570
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Yeah with all this squireling the key here is to remember to remove before shipping.

    • #44571
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      I was profiling the memory :)
      I leaked it out every now and again when it was required and I thought the other disciplines had tried hard enough to do their bit :)

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