Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 579 2D Acceleration and "Three Kingdoms"

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Against the background of the rapid development of the IT industry dominated by microcomputers, the developer conference held in spring and autumn every year is not a public relations activity that is superfluous and gang-forming. It is so rich that it has become the most influential in the industry at this stage. technology event.

Its content covers a wide range, ranging from a specific technical realization to an industry standard, and the final results can even affect various standardization organizations in the United States and even the international level. It can be said that its power is increasing day by day.

Compared with the turmoil caused by the debate and game of standard competition at the macro level, most technical elites are more obsessed with the sense of accomplishment brought about by the functional application of technology at the micro level.

This autumn developer conference, centering on the 32 architecture of the fourth-generation Fangyuan personal computer under development, further introduced various technical achievements to the participants.

Although IBM is aware of the importance of openness to personal computers, the actual operation is only reflected in the expansion slot of the IBM-PC motherboard, and the unintentionally caused uncontrolled tide of IBM-PC compatibles, and the mind has not reached the level like Tang. In this way, people in the industry gather together to introduce and promote third-party development before the product is launched.

In fact, in high-end fields such as Fangyuan workstations and Fangyuan servers, out of technical confidentiality considerations, Tang Huan also conducts R&D in a "closed-door" manner similar to IBM, but when it comes to Fangyuan personal computers, his attitude appears to be very open. And radical, thus attracting a large number of third-party developers to join in.

There are many big companies among these participants. The new technologies adopted by Gein Fangyuan personal computer are often extended from the advanced technology of Fangyuan workstation and Fangyuan server, which can be said to contain a lot of valuable opportunities.

For example, the theme of today's conference—the display subsystem of the fourth-generation Fangyuan personal computer—is destined to disrupt the industry again. Tang Huan's appearance also shows this point.

The entire Fangyuan computer product line has a set of unified display standards called Video Graphics Standard—Video Graphics Standard, or VGS.Among them, Fangyuan Graphics Workstation has the highest specifications, while the third generation of Fangyuan PCs uses VGS version 2.0, which supports a maximum resolution of 640×480 and 16 colors.

The display subsystem specification of the fourth-generation Fangyuan personal computer was upgraded to VGS version 2.5, 640×480 became the standard resolution, and the number of supported display colors reached 256 through the color index table.

The most basic beneficiaries of this hardware enhancement are applications like word processing.

在VGS2.5的640×480标准分辨率屏幕上，文字模式支持显示80×25或40×25个字母及数字；每个字符的块状区域，可以选择16种前景色和8种背景色；字符本身也可以被设置是否闪烁。

Support for features such as these enables richer means for displaying text content.

After introducing the features of VGS2.5, Tang Huan, who went into the battle himself, demonstrated it on the slideshow software PowerPresenter. The audience can see the operation results directly on the big screen.

The personal computer used in the demonstration is a third-generation Fangyuan personal computer, but the matching graphics card is a new product that fully supports VGS2.5. This smooth transition can only be provided by the Fangyuan computer system, which can break down the entire complex R&D plan into Easier-to-operate modules can make it easier for third-party developers to build a development and testing platform in a timely manner.

VGS2.5 has a color table with 256 indexes, which is not fixed. This is also a strong point compared with other types of personal computers such as IBM-PC. The color types that the latter can display are often only red. , green, blue, black, white, yellow, etc. are fixed, and the former group of 256 colors can be designated as any color.

原因在于，VGS2.5用6个二进制位表示红、绿、蓝的每个通道，即各有2的6次方等于64种组合，三原色进一步组合后形成了64×64×64=262144种颜色，而颜色表的256种颜色就可以在这个262144种颜色当中选择。

In order to illustrate the power of this color palette, Tang Huan used the bitmap program that comes with the operating system to demonstrate, and pointed out some programming skills that are very useful for the effect of the game screen.

After the introduction at this stage, everyone in the audience asked their own questions in the most popular interactive session.

It was impossible for Tang Huan to answer them one by one. Seeing that there were so many people who cared about the GUI operating system, he expressed his opinion.

"The graphical user interface is the general trend of the development of personal computer operating systems, which is already a consensus in the industry. But I don't know if you have thought about it. What elements must a graphical user interface operating system with practical functions and costs have? In my opinion, Cooperative multitasking, memory protection, and other features are indispensable. However, judging from the current development level of the IT industry, it is obvious that everyone is not ready yet. Those pioneers that have appeared are good examples .”

Although Tang Huan didn't name them, everyone in the audience naturally thought of Apple's Lisa and Mac.The former supports advanced features such as multitasking, but its operating efficiency is low, and it cannot attract users to spend $10000 to buy it; the latter does not support multitasking, and even hard disks do not support it, so the price has dropped to a quarter, but the operating efficiency Equally passable.

"Tang, it is said that Zheru's R&D center already has a prototype of a graphical user interface operating system. I wonder when it will be displayed to the public? Or when do you think a practical graphical user interface operating system will be widely available? "The participants asked enthusiastically.

"We are indeed also developing a graphical user interface operating system." Tang Huan answered the first question lightly, and then quickly turned to the second question, "As for when the practical graphical user interface operating system will be popularized, I think it depends. It depends on when the microprocessor vendor can provide a powerful enough CPU."

Speaking of this, Tang Huan raised his finger to the Logo on the big screen, "The fourth generation of Fangyuan PCs opened the era of 32-bit personal computers, which is only the first step. The next step is to popularize and practical GUI operating systems, because the 32-bit architecture Provides more computing performance."

Tang Huan then smiled slightly, "I understand everyone's expectations for the GUI operating system, in fact, this does not affect our development of GUI applications, the Shell program of FeeDOS, and the spreadsheet CGrid, word processing WordEasy, slideshow Office software such as PowerPresenter provides a mouse-driven graphical user interface."

"The difficulty of development is too high. For some software projects, the gains outweigh the losses." The programmers in the audience began to complain, "For example, when we make a game, we must naturally focus on the game itself, not on the graphical user interface. Letting go of the root and chasing the end."

"The fourth generation of Fangyuan personal computers will provide everyone with a framework for developing graphical user interface programs more easily." Tang Huan tapped the keyboard a few times, and the slide content changed accordingly, "Including a more powerful BIOS, and an operating system level However, this topic will be introduced by others, and what I will say next is related to the development of video games on the Fangyuan personal computer platform."

"VGS2.5 defines how to convert the digital video signal inside the host and the analog video signal of the display. For programs like video games, it is just a better visual display platform, but it happens inside the host. The processing of digital video data still relies heavily on the CPU for calculation."

"If an acceleration mechanism can be provided to reduce the burden on the CPU so that it has more resources to process game AI, then I believe the game experience will be improved to a higher level."

"This acceleration mechanism is implemented on the Fangyuan graphics workstation through the hardware 2D acceleration graphics card and the software OpenGraphicsLibrary - the open graphics library or OpenGL."

"2D accelerated graphics cards can directly realize drawing squares, straight lines, circles and other graphics by hardware, as well as functions such as area filling and block image transmission; OpenGL defines a cross-programming language, cross-platform application program interface specification for generating two-dimensional Image. It’s similar to floating-point arithmetic, although it can be implemented completely in software, hardware acceleration can exert its full power.”

"With the maturity of this acceleration mechanism, we are now preparing to introduce it to the Fangyuan personal computer platform, bringing innovative convenience to video game development."

Tang Huan talked eloquently on the stage, and everyone in the audience listened intently. Occasionally, a thought flashed through his mind, "The four generations of Fangyuan personal computers are aided by these high-end technologies. It seems that an era is really about to start. .”

Tang Huan will not be like IBM, in order to distinguish between high, medium and low-end products, and let the research and development of personal computer products be tied up.No matter who is missing, the earth will continue to rotate.If you stand still, others will naturally look at the opportunity to surpass it, so it is better to hold the initiative in your own hands.

What's more, in the era of microcomputers, there are also many ways to classify products into high-end, high-end and low-end. Indicators such as operating frequency, cache size, parallel line width, etc. can all be manipulated.

Therefore, Tang Huan never worried that such an approach would shoot himself in the foot, and his family would rob each other of their jobs.

When the subject of VGS2.5 and 2D acceleration was almost introduced, Tang Huan picked up the remote control and pressed it. The projector he occupied gave up the big screen, and the staff began to prepare to play a promotional video.

I have to mention that Tang Huan has basically completed the complete solution for the modern office automation system.

In terms of hardware, there are laser printers, dot matrix printers, inkjet printers, scanners, modems, digital fax machines, projectors, etc., and in terms of software, electronic forms, word processing, slides, databases, etc. are all available.Naturally, the financial resources are also rolling in.

Seeing Tang Huan use a mouse and a remote control on the stage to complete a lot of routine operations, it was indescribably chic. The idea of ​​purchasing a set of such office automation equipment.When the time comes to hold a meeting, he must be very handsome.

Soon, as the background music sounded, everyone's messy thoughts were swept away by the majestic and atmospheric melody.The distant sound of the trumpet at the beginning of the chapter seemed to present a historical picture of swallowing mountains and rivers before their eyes.

Under the instruction of Tang Huan, this song "Dawn of Heroes" was composed by Hu Weili, performed by Xiangjiang Philharmonic Orchestra and Xiangjiang Chinese Orchestra, and chorus of Hongkong Academy for Performing Arts. It was then authorized to EA as a heavyweight historical simulation of the Three Kingdoms The background music of the theme strategy game "Three Kingdoms".

Compared with the magnificent "Dawn of Heroes", although the promotional video of "Three Kingdoms" is excellent, Tang Huan is not satisfied. He knows that this is due to his own information asymmetry advantage and his vision is too high. Therefore, he did not make things difficult for his subordinates.

The hot screening of "Phantom of the Tomb: Wrath of the Dragon Emperor" made many people recognize at a glance that the scene of the flames of war in the promotional film is ancient China, and the accompanying introduction made them understand that this is the magnificent Three Kingdoms in Chinese history era.

Liu Bei, Cao Cao, Sun Quan, all heroes rise together; one Lv, two Zhao, three Dianwei, four passes, five horses and six Zhang Fei, the famous generals are like a cloud; coupled with the strategizing of Zhuge Liang and other counselors, it has laid a natural foundation for the game.

After the promotional video was played, Tang Huan said with a smile: "EA's latest game "Three Kingdoms" supports both the second-generation Xiaobawang game console and the third-generation and above Fangyuan personal computer. In the video, the Fangyuan personal computer is running the game. It was realized by the three generations of Fangyuan PCs equipped with graphics cards that support VGS2.5 and 2D acceleration."

"It can be seen that the image quality of "Three Kingdoms" is very good, which is due to hardware acceleration. The CPU with a reduced burden can execute more interesting game AI, so the playability of "Three Kingdoms" is also very high."

"COMDEX, "Three Kingdoms" and 2D accelerated graphics cards will be officially launched in a few days. If you are interested, you can personally experience the phased new technology achievements of these four generations of Fangyuan PCs."

(End of this chapter)