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Mozilla and Epic Preview Unreal Engine 4 Running in Firefox

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Re: Mozilla and Epic Preview Unreal Engine 4 Running in Firefox

#121

Post by stoptalkingshit »

pcwalton wrote: post #120
stoptalkingshit wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What GALL you have to be so willfully dishonest. asm.js is statically typed and has only the most coincidental relationship to Javascript. Just as if I take pointers out of C it is no longer C. What's funny is that you are exhibiting EXACTLY the "nothing to see here" behavior I just described by invoking some completely nominal relationship between Javascript and asm.js. And it is exactly this "nothing to see here" b…

If you wrote a C compiler that had special optimizations for a subset of C without pointers, then it would still be a C compiler, and the subset that it optimized for would still be C. (In fact, this is exactly the approach taken with languages like GLSL 1.0, although they added some extensions to make it not C anymore.)

I didn't say the Javascript implementations weren't Javascript implementations. Further, you are incorrect. A subset of C cannot be C. Are you dumb? If I make an expression language is this C because C has a little expression language inside it? It is a subset - and also a SUBSET OF AN INFINITE SET OF OTHER LANGUAGES. Hopefully you can understand my anger that baboons are apparently allowed to implement programming languages. They got it wrong with Javascript and did a complete about-turn with emscripten etc in REACTION to competitors. I look forward to laughing at your continued attempts to hide this embarrassing little abortion.

Re: Mozilla and Epic Preview Unreal Engine 4 Running in Firefox

#122

Post by azakai »

taeric wrote: post #115
azakai wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I meant users: You ship your game on the web, it reaches its users - the people playing it - directly. That's the benefit of the web. I agree tools are important too, but the main benefit of the web is it is runs everywhere, and no one controls it.

How many games are there that run from links off the web that are actually making money? (Not being an ass. I seriously want to know if there are any numbers on this.)

I don't have business numbers, but there are huge amounts of successful games on the web, using Flash (for example FarmVille on Facebook, etc.).

The issue of course is that Flash has many technical issues, doesn't work in all browsers/all OSes, and so forth, hence the move to do the same games in HTML5.

Re: Mozilla and Epic Preview Unreal Engine 4 Running in Firefox

#123

Post by frozenport »

cromwellian wrote: post #37

I just bought Titanfall yesterday. I run this on a watercooled PC, dual GPU setup. I wouldn't have bought such a PC setup just to run at 60% of system performance. I think Mozilla is marketing this wrong. Triple-AAA titles go for squeezing every last ounce of system performance. I don't think there is anything to be gained to putting a game like Titanfall, which has 5 gigabytes of assets (some UE titles are much bigg…

You 60% of native has no relevant baseline. Native is not a benchmark. For example, the authors could have optimized, or messed up their code.

What is important is that developers target platforms with certain features and certain frame rates. The devs targeted Firefox and removed a few bushes.

It is very hard to judge game quality based on compute throughput. Its a game not a benchmark.

tldr; Performance hit to native isn't a relevant statistic.

Re: Mozilla and Epic Preview Unreal Engine 4 Running in Firefox

#124

Post by Jonathan_Swift »

azakai wrote: post #122
taeric wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many games are there that run from links off the web that are actually making money? (Not being an ass. I seriously want to know if there are any numbers on this.)

I don't have business numbers, but there are huge amounts of successful games on the web, using Flash (for example FarmVille on Facebook, etc.). The issue of course is that Flash has many technical issues, doesn't work in all browsers/all OSes, and so forth, hence the move to do the same games in HTML5.

azakia, a Flash App once requested my permission to turn on my Mac's built-in video camera and microphone.

Funny how I was just then commanded by G-d Almighty Himself to unstall my Flash plugin.

While Flash does require permission to enable video and sound input, I am dead certain that someone with a clue could find a way to do so without actually asking permission.

It's not like those who like to hang at Websites of Ill Repute are diligent about keeping their patches up-to-date.

Re: Mozilla and Epic Preview Unreal Engine 4 Running in Firefox

#125

Post by kivikakk »

stoptalkingshit wrote: post #121
pcwalton wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you wrote a C compiler that had special optimizations for a subset of C without pointers, then it would still be a C compiler, and the subset that it optimized for would still be C. (In fact, this is exactly the approach taken with languages like GLSL 1.0, although they added some extensions to make it not C anymore.)

I didn't say the Javascript implementations weren't Javascript implementations. Further, you are incorrect. A subset of C cannot be C. Are you dumb? If I make an expression language is this C because C has a little expression language inside it? It is a subset - and also a SUBSET OF AN INFINITE SET OF OTHER LANGUAGES. Hopefully you can understand my anger that baboons are apparently allowed to implement programming l…

> the subset that it optimized for would still be C

This doesn't mean to imply the subset is the entirety of C; it means the subset is part of the definition of C — just like you can say "'int x = 4;' is C", even though it's a (demonstration of a) subset of C.

The JavaScript which happens to be optimised under the name "asm.js" is still JavaScript that executes in any non-optimising runtime, and the semantics with those optimisations and without are the same.

Re: Mozilla and Epic Preview Unreal Engine 4 Running in Firefox

#126

Post by stoptalkingshit »

kivikakk wrote: post #125
stoptalkingshit wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say the Javascript implementations weren't Javascript implementations. Further, you are incorrect. A subset of C cannot be C. Are you dumb? If I make an expression language is this C because C has a little expression language inside it? It is a subset - and also a SUBSET OF AN INFINITE SET OF OTHER LANGUAGES. Hopefully you can understand my anger that baboons are apparently allowed to implement programming l…

> the subset that it optimized for would still be C This doesn't mean to imply the subset is the entirety of C; it means the subset is part of the definition of C — just like you can say "'int x = 4;' is C", even though it's a (demonstration of a) subset of C. The JavaScript which happens to be optimised under the name "asm.js" is still JavaScript that executes in any non-optimising runtime, and the semantics with th…

Javascript was the wrong design choice, and the asm.js people are very sensitive about this. Which is why they pretend it's "just Javascript". Nobody denies that it's backward compatible. But it is a new language, the rest is word games.

Re: Mozilla and Epic Preview Unreal Engine 4 Running in Firefox

#127

Post by stcredzero »

stoptalkingshit wrote: post #98
stcredzero wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of these benefits are tied to the crap browser platform that's been foisted on us. No, but they are tied to the web, for which browsers and JavaScript are an incumbent technology. You are right, in the same way that Windows has nothing in particular to do with games, outside of a fortunate adoption of DirectX. It's just that it's the way the world turned out. Admittedly, there are downsides.

The popularity of DirectX doesn't vindicate Windows either. So what's your point? It's shit but, eh, that's the way the world turned out? People have every right to be annoyed because the people who were entrusted with the concept of the web implemented it very badly. At least on Windows there's a serious effort to give me as much of the machine's power as possible. I had a better programming experience with Java app…

It's shit but, eh, that's the way the world turned out?

We are in agreement.

People have every right to be annoyed because the people who were entrusted with the concept of the web implemented it very badly.

Again, no disagreement. But in the meantime, implementing things is still my preferred activity to complaining.

Re: Mozilla and Epic Preview Unreal Engine 4 Running in Firefox

#128

Post by stoptalkingshit »

stcredzero wrote: post #127
stoptalkingshit wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The popularity of DirectX doesn't vindicate Windows either. So what's your point? It's shit but, eh, that's the way the world turned out? People have every right to be annoyed because the people who were entrusted with the concept of the web implemented it very badly. At least on Windows there's a serious effort to give me as much of the machine's power as possible. I had a better programming experience with Java app…

It's shit but, eh, that's the way the world turned out? We are in agreement. People have every right to be annoyed because the people who were entrusted with the concept of the web implemented it very badly. Again, no disagreement. But in the meantime, implementing things is still my preferred activity to complaining.

Well, I agree. And asm.js etc are better than what we had before, so some praise should be allocated to them. But it is not innovative or elegant; it's a hack that takes us back to the state of the JVM more than a decade ago, and we're going to be paying the cost for it for some time. Hell, they can't even get the simplest possible thing - the syntax of HTML - right. So it will always anger me when I see web types touting their "innovation" etc. They are good at one thing: marketing to stupids.

Re: Mozilla and Epic Preview Unreal Engine 4 Running in Firefox

#129

Post by johnbm »

pcwalton wrote: post #112
johnbm wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WebGL is a deliberately limited but secure sandbox based on a spec for mobile devices that is two major releases out of date and makes an Xbox 360 look like science fiction. Asm.js is an enormous hack where we limit the computational expressiveness of performance critical code by the semantics and standard library of a language notoriously shit at it.

> WebGL is a deliberately limited but secure sandbox based on a spec for mobile devices that is two major releases out of date and makes an Xbox 360 look like science fiction. Unreal Engine 4 is a counterexample. > Asm.js is an enormous hack where we limit the computational expressiveness of performance critical code by the semantics and standard library of a language notoriously shit at it. How is it limited?

"Unreal Engine 4" is marketing buzzspeak. WebGL is modelled after OpenGL ES 2. Its GLSL support is massively outdated. It lacks features like multiple render targets (used by any deferred renderer in the XB360 era, e.g. Unreal Engine 3), geometry shaders, multisampled reads (for HDR MSAA and hybrid spatial/temporal AA techniques), and tons of other common techniques.

Asm.js is limited by having no 32-bit float type, no 64-bit int type, no SIMD, no dynamic memory allocation and the fact that they had to extend the language from day 1 just to be able to multiply a 32-bit integer by another quickly.

You may want to actually inform yourself.

Re: Mozilla and Epic Preview Unreal Engine 4 Running in Firefox

#130

Post by epsylon »

johnbm wrote: post #110
pcwalton wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least on Windows there's a serious effort to give me as much of the machine's power as possible. What is asm.js (and WebGL, for that matter) if not that?

WebGL is a deliberately limited but secure sandbox based on a spec for mobile devices that is two major releases out of date and makes an Xbox 360 look like science fiction. Asm.js is an enormous hack where we limit the computational expressiveness of performance critical code by the semantics and standard library of a language notoriously shit at it.

There are numerous security issues with WebGL, so I wouldn't really call it "secure".
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