17th February 2003, 11:55 PM
But actually changing the frame rate could be quite difficult in comparison, since as you stated it's not "locked". LL knows more about this than I do (and most likely more than you as well) and lazy most likely knows more about graphical stuff than I (it's a fact), but from what I do know since the frame rate isn't locked, it's likely limited based on other things. There's more to it, but simply put it's the system's speed that limits it. In the case of the GCN port, they could simply have set up an artificial overall speed limit (likely they set the same thing on N64, but anyway) which would affect anything that would normally go as fast as possible. Resolution isn't something that has a "speed" that could get out of control. However, frame rate is. To alter the frame rate, they would first have to find a way to seperate whatever part of the graphics code anything that deals with the frame rate from the rest of the stuff that's limited. This frame rate stuff could be spread out in many functions, or part of other functions you wouldn't want sped up. They would also need to insert some code to "lock" the frame rate, or in other words set it's limit. This is a lot more work than a simple res boost (but likely not as much as the port work, not that I've got any clue what was done there, as I haven't really studied anything regarding the actual process of translating languages into machine code, though maybe LL has and I'm pretty sure Lord Shockwave has) from what I understand or even the Master Quest programming (well, a large amount of that, if not all, was already done by Mr Miyamoto's gang back for 64DD) because all they would need to alter there (assuming they had a working program specially made to build OOT levels, which since it's cheaper and quicker to go about it that way than directly, I bet they did) is where stuff is placed, inserting chests and stuff into the map and all that stuff which after the code for how it all works is done, is both easy and fun (I imagine anyway from my limited experience :D).
Anyway, that's just what I think the reasoning is behind it all. Remember, of those taking programming classes here, I'm likely the furthest back in the training, so pretty much anyone else could easily correct me. However, I'm pretty sure it would have been a much bigger effort to mess with the frame rate than to just boost the res.
One thing they could have considered doing was replacing a large number of the textures with higher res ones (didn't they keep the originals before compression around?), which would have involved just replacing all the image data with other image data, a simple cut and paste job. To be honest I'd MUCH rather have improoved texture work than higher frame rate, since as I said it's not noticable unless you pay really close attention or have fly eyes like OB1 here. The problem there is that it's a pretty LONG thing to go about doing (res boost would be one thing they would need to adjust and that's about it) and they would have to do quite a bit of testing to make sure not once is all that added texture data causing slowdown (which could very well happen if they add too many textures, even with all that power at the GCN's disposal it could slow down if the RAM is overloaded, just one bottleneck and all that rot...). Anyway, that's enough from me. Now then, shoot it all to shreds those who actually have studied far more than me!
Anyway, that's just what I think the reasoning is behind it all. Remember, of those taking programming classes here, I'm likely the furthest back in the training, so pretty much anyone else could easily correct me. However, I'm pretty sure it would have been a much bigger effort to mess with the frame rate than to just boost the res.
One thing they could have considered doing was replacing a large number of the textures with higher res ones (didn't they keep the originals before compression around?), which would have involved just replacing all the image data with other image data, a simple cut and paste job. To be honest I'd MUCH rather have improoved texture work than higher frame rate, since as I said it's not noticable unless you pay really close attention or have fly eyes like OB1 here. The problem there is that it's a pretty LONG thing to go about doing (res boost would be one thing they would need to adjust and that's about it) and they would have to do quite a bit of testing to make sure not once is all that added texture data causing slowdown (which could very well happen if they add too many textures, even with all that power at the GCN's disposal it could slow down if the RAM is overloaded, just one bottleneck and all that rot...). Anyway, that's enough from me. Now then, shoot it all to shreds those who actually have studied far more than me!
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)