Beer At Jupiters
Tonight I decided to grab a beer at Jupiters with Michael Constant. He left Activision a little while ago to work on a math degree at Berkeley (my alma mater). I met Michael when my friend Melinda brought him to a movie night a couple weeks ago. You worked in gaming you say? We really must talk some more. :) Turns out Michaels a real badass. Hes been mentoring new developers and taking on the bitch ass bugs that no one else has the guts to stare down.
It was fun talking about the details of PS2 codingthe trade offs because the memory bus is slow, but with 128-bit integers and a fast render it makes more sense to calculate and render everything you can rather than sorting by z-buffer and caching other stuff. But, you still have to do clipping because if you go outside the screen past 30 pixels you hose memory. I forgot how much fun it is to talk to hardcore developers. :) I havent been bumping into people on the street who know assembly and its fun to stretch those muscles!
Michael gave me a tidbit to pass on to another friend at EA, Erin Turner. Hes figured out the hacks needed to network boot GC and PS2 (easier than GC) that I think Erin may have been looking for, I’ll shoot her a quick email. He hasnt seen the EA campus yet, I gotta remember to invite him next time I’m down there.