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BMW i8 in WebGL

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131–140 of 141 posts

Re: BMW i8 in WebGL

#131
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally cars in this segment don't age well to begin with. For example a new BMW 750i will cost you $100k+. A used 2009 750i with only 60k miles though? $30k. Not just BMW, either, a certified-used 2009 911 Turbo can be yours for $70k, less the half the starting MSRP of $150k. But the people who buy them don't care. They'll just buy whatever the new thing is.

Meanwhile the people who buy 2009 7-series for $30K get a ridiculously nice car for the price of a Camry... but they pay maintenance costs which are a lot higher than the Camry driver's. There's a reason not everyone is buying cheap used luxury cars.

Absolutely, I certainly wouldn't recommend it. But the maintaince aspect is yet another argument in favor of my point, which is that people dropping over $100k on a car typically don't care if it holds value.

It's irrelevant if the i8 is still cool in 5 years to the people that can afford an i8.

Re: BMW i8 in WebGL

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It locks up my browser and takes 20 seconds to render one frame. (I guess that would be 0.05 FPS.) So: no, not really impressive. Feels like a regression, actually. (At least the mobile devices of 2015 managed to do 3D acceleration properly. Too bad that desktop never caught up and that the mobile landscape formed by accident due to commoditization, not due to an understanding of open standards.)

Runs fine on my Xeon Goobuntu workstation. Not really usable on macbook air.

Runs fine on my air. Fan whirs a bit.

Re: BMW i8 in WebGL

#133

Ah, the car that fakes internal combustion engine noise when it's running on electric... No thanks. Nice demo though!

> Ah, the car that fakes internal combustion engine noise when it's running on electric Cars are legally required to do so, aren't they? Otherwise, electric vehicles would be quiet enough to kill people.

> Cars are legally required to do so, aren't they?

As an owner of a Tesla, no, there is no such thing (at least in the US), and please stop spreading misinformation (if you are talking about the US).

And the car is not COMPLETELY silent... the wheels make noise on the road. I've driven a completely electric car for at least a year, never got even closely into a pedestrian "situation", and I live in a highly populated area (NYC and its suburbs).

Re: BMW i8 in WebGL

#134

Ah, the car that fakes internal combustion engine noise when it's running on electric... No thanks. Nice demo though!

> Ah, the car that fakes internal combustion engine noise when it's running on electric Cars are legally required to do so, aren't they? Otherwise, electric vehicles would be quiet enough to kill people.

> Cars are legally required to do so, aren't they?

Not yet in the US, though there are active proposals to change that.

> Otherwise, electric vehicles would be quiet enough to kill people.

A completely silent car, driven properly, wouldn't kill anyone.

Re: BMW i8 in WebGL

#135
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're talking about casual games that reality is never going to be realized. AAA games are written as close to the hardware as possible/feasible, as you probably already know. For every developer willing to develop against an abstraction like the Web, there will be others unwilling to give up that performance.

For every indie who has made it trying to make AAA games... wait, there aren't any. AAA games are for companies with the resources to port code to every platform they can imagine. I'm not a diehard gamer, myopically focused on only AAA to the detriment of my livelihood. I'm a developer. There is more business for me in "casual" games--whatever that actually means, because it seems to only ever be used as a pejorative…

My point is just like you aren't keen on porting, other people aren't keen on throwing performance away.

What you're really really after is a single OS, single hardware platform world. That would require the least amount of porting effort which is your goal.

People (and you might not be one of those) think that the Web is going to bring about this great cross-platform revolution, but its a lie except for the basic UI, low-perf applications for two easy-to-identify reasons. First, the standards themselves are poorly specified and contain ambiguities (by design to give leeway to implementors on different hardware). No standard body even puts out a reference implementation. Second, each platform implementation will be implemented differently causing people shipping cross-platform to care about weird implementation quirks that cause the performance of their game to tank in weird ways.

Re: BMW i8 in WebGL

#136
post #84
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're talking about casual games that reality is never going to be realized. AAA games are written as close to the hardware as possible/feasible, as you probably already know. For every developer willing to develop against an abstraction like the Web, there will be others unwilling to give up that performance.

With Webassembly on its way, and solutions such as Emscripten/NaCl/PNaCl, AAA web games aren't too far off.

Good to know :)

Re: BMW i8 in WebGL

#137

Runs about .1 - .2 fps on my iPhone 4s equivalent potato. They've certainly lost MY expensive-new-car business!

I'm not sure what's up with your iPhone 4S (although you do say 'equivalent') but on my 4S, I get around 10FPS. Not fast, but usable.

Interesting. It's an android, and the cpu/gpu specs seem close to the 4s, with most 3D openGL apps being fast and smooth. I wonder why you're getting 100x better performance? Could be JS performance, but I'm using the latest FF, which is usually good.

Re: BMW i8 in WebGL

#138

Ah, the car that fakes internal combustion engine noise when it's running on electric... No thanks. Nice demo though!

> Ah, the car that fakes internal combustion engine noise when it's running on electric Cars are legally required to do so, aren't they? Otherwise, electric vehicles would be quiet enough to kill people.

it is different to have simulated engine noise inside the car and some exterior noises to alert pedestrians/etc that a car is coming

Re: BMW i8 in WebGL

#139
post #16

To whoever it was a few weeks back who said it looks like the i8 was "giving birth to a Porsche", you were right: Once you've seen it, you can't unsee it. As this visualization demonstrates in nice 3d form.

I think the design has a few too many un-necessary flourishes, and it probably won't age very well. It definitely grabs your attention, but in a few years when electric cars are less rare I bet it will look kind of gimmicky.

I feel like it looks gimmicky already. I would seriously consider one of these if not for the (to me) hideous styling. The Model S is clearly better from a pure performance standpoint, but I expect the details of the BMW would be better, as well as likely the handling (although would have to drive them to see!) Also I don't live near a Tesla repair facility, which is really making me second guess getting one.

However, I really don't think I can drive a car that looks like this. Especially with the silly blue trim.

Re: BMW i8 in WebGL

#140
post #97

Ah, the car that fakes internal combustion engine noise when it's running on electric... No thanks. Nice demo though!

I hope that they only add this fake noise when no radio is playing or that it can easily be disabled.

Cars with internal fake noise generally have an option to disable it. There are plenty of gas cars with small, turbo engines that have this noise, it's not particular to cars that are part or all electric.
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