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Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> __/ [ Mark Kent ] on Monday 22 January 2007 10:31 \__
>
>> begin oe_protect.scr
>> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>>> http://www.letvafly.com/VADIFE.php
>>>
>>> "Open source video games (and a future invitation for savvy linux game
>>> developers to participate in Red)"
>>>
>>> Where I found this it also says:
>>>
>>> "Three servers on the plane feed the Linux clients with Live TV, VOD,
>>> 3,000 mp3s, etc... Oh yeah, and the computers play DOOM."
>>
>> At last, an in-flight gaming system which might keep me playing for more
>> than 5 mins. Perhaps they could set up a legacy-doom style server
>> rotating round a selection of 30 or 50 arenas, one each 10 mins, with a
>> team deathmatch or something? I might even start looking forward to
>> getting on the aircraft instead of looking forward to getting off it!
>
> They ought to use in-plane networking to do multiplayer tournaments on the
> plane.
>
> "No thanks, maam, no more coffee. That guy who sits in 16C is 'camping' and
> he's out to get me".
>
That's exactly the kind of thing I was thinking about. I've been on too
many planes which have used Windows to try to do this, and listened to
the incessant apologies from the flight-deck about having to restart it
and sorry for the delays and all that.
On the other hand, legacy doom, lots of arenas, could be great. On an
aeroplane of up to 500 people, there're bound to be some ageing gamers
like myself who'd fancy a bit of retro gaming fun, as well as later
generations who've grown up at least aware of doom and its ilk, and who
could surely put in a reasonable performance.
I can't see accelerated graphics having an impact in that arena, as the
power-load and heat from 500 seat-back GPUs would be very expensive, so
it's really back to the retro-world. Similarly, for the seat-back
computers with their touch-screens and mini-qwerties, a heavyweight OS
is never going to cut it, on the other hand, linux runs very well on as
little as a 386 with 4M ram, or a little arm processor or two. Doom is
quite playable on my Nokia 770, and totally immersing on the GP2X.
Wow, I really am starting to think that the "up in the air bit" could be
fun :-) Quick bit of reminiscing - all those years ago flying to
Capetown, and our best entertainment was the portable cassette player
and a bag of batteries, the inflight was drop-down screens and crappy
sound... how things have moved on in such a short time. *And*, we even
have some new planes from Airbus, too.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
"A University without students is like an ointment without a fly."
-- Ed Nather, professor of astronomy at UT Austin
|
|
