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Re: Jason Jones interview
Posted By: M-ClassDate: 1/12/02 11:01 a.m.

In Response To: Re: Jason Jones interview (M-Class)

Q. Did you just do some code profiling and figured out what 10 percent of the program was called 90 percent of the time, and then fine-tune those routines in assembler?

A. The 10/90 thing is a clichè, but that's right. That's exactly what we did. We took the game after it was done, we profiled it, and wefigured out what was slow and rewrote that in assembly. Profiling was actually helpful for other reasons, too. A lot of things can be fixed in C as well. If your algorithm is bad, then your assembly code can be bad. Assembly was a last resort for us.

Q. So you optimized the C code first. You looked for better algorithms in C before resorting to assembly.

A. We pretty much expected to go assembly code in the texture mapping, but we absolutely refused to go to assembly in any of the high-level game code. If the monsters move around really slowly, it's because their code is slow. If the map monster code is slow, we weren't going to rewrite it in assembly- we just fixed it so that it worked better and faster. Because that's stuff you just don't want to do.

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Pre-2004 Posts

Replies:

Jason Jones interviewAndrew Nagy 1/9/02 8:31 a.m.
     Also, while playing Marathon 2 the other day...Andrew Nagy 1/9/02 9:10 a.m.
     Re: Jason Jones interviewHamish Sinclair 1/9/02 9:17 a.m.
           Re: Jason Jones interviewwhocares 1/9/02 11:31 a.m.
           Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/9/02 2:51 p.m.
                 Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/9/02 3:11 p.m.
                       Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/9/02 3:24 p.m.
                             Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/9/02 3:43 p.m.
                                   Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/9/02 3:54 p.m.
                                         Cool. Are you going to continue? *NM*Hamish Sinclair 1/9/02 9:28 p.m.
                                               HAMISH!!Khral 1/10/02 2:39 a.m.
                                                     Re: HAMISH!!Hamish Sinclair 1/10/02 3:11 a.m.
                                               yep, I got sleepy last night *NM*M-Class 1/10/02 10:58 a.m.
                                         Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/10/02 11:17 a.m.
                                               Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/10/02 11:34 a.m.
                                                     Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/12/02 9:43 a.m.
                                                           Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/12/02 10:06 a.m.
                                                                 Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/12/02 10:31 a.m.
                                                                       Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/12/02 10:44 a.m.
                                                                             Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/12/02 11:01 a.m.
                                                                                   Many thanks *NM*Hamish Sinclair 1/12/02 12:22 p.m.
                                                                                   Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/13/02 11:08 a.m.
                                                                                         Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/13/02 11:31 a.m.
                                                                                               Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/13/02 11:58 a.m.
                                                                                                     Re: Jason Jones interviewM-Class 1/13/02 12:27 p.m.
                                                                                                           Many thanks. *NM*Hamish Sinclair 1/14/02 12:14 p.m.
                 Re: Jason Jones interviewDan Aris 1/10/02 2:13 p.m.
                 I have this Book! I will sell it if anyone wants!Ernie TMBM 1/11/02 2:53 p.m.
                       Re: I have this Book! I will sell it if anyone wanHamish Sinclair 1/12/02 9:05 a.m.
                             Re: I have this Book! I will sell it if anyone wanErnie 1/15/02 12:39 p.m.
                             Re: I have this Book! I will sell it if anyone wanErnie 1/15/02 12:40 p.m.
           Re: Jason Jones interviewVid Boi 1/10/02 2:20 a.m.



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