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Work Stuff... -December 10, 2005 12:26am CST -8:00 GMT
 
 
GPG6 Book Cover etc.. -November 17, 2005 1:17pm CST -8:00 GMT
Amazon.com page:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1584504501

Charles River Media Page:
http://www.charlesriver.com/Books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=124038
 
GPG6 Abstract -October 19, 2005 1:45pm CST -8:00 GMT

"Faster Loading with Access-Based File Re-ordering"
      Most games face the requirement of loading resources from media. Operating systems can be fairly slow obtaining file handles for a large number of files. Most games load their resources from packed resource files as an optimization. These are large file databases that contain a full directory hierarchy as a single file or small group of files. Resource files effectively solve this file handle overhead issue. However, another problem exists. The file order of resource files is generally a mirror of the directory structure on disk. Games rarely access resources in the order they appear within the directory structure. Instead they tend to jump around within the resource file. This can be a major bottleneck. Resources will always load faster when accessed sequentially. Modern games use a large enough data set to show this weakness within the resource file layout. All games exhibit some pattern of resource usage. The next step in optimizing load times is to gather data on how the game uses resources. We can then examine those usage patterns to provide an optimized file order within the resource file.
 
Game Programming Gems 6 -August 22, 2005 4:34pm CST -8:00 GMT
Keep an eye out for Game Programming Gems 6 in October. I'm writing an article entitled "Faster Loading with Access-Based File Reordering", in the General Programming section. I'll post the abstract here soon. The article discusses this and a few general tips for faster resource loading.
 
 
New File Added. -May 27, 2005 2:21am CST -8:00 GMT
I've added a CHM file that tackles a few debugging issues. Most of this is information is either compiled from the Net, or from my personal experience. Hopefully someone will get some use out of the information. The doc is based on a white paper I wrote for the Jupiter Engine SDK. Maybe some day I'll add some code samples to demonstrate the points made in the doc. (and maybe not...)
 
 
New Page! -May 27, 2005 11:18am CST -8:00 GMT
I've added a new section to the website, devoted to programming. My main programming focus is on C, C++, ASM, and Java. That being said there's a forum section set up for the disccusion of programming topics. General Programming The content on this page is pretty weak currently. It's new... it's free... what do ya want?!?!?!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Files
GeneralDebugging.zip
 
 
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