When I was making basic things for my 3D engine I found out something uhm... stupid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_strip

"The use of polygon strips in products distributed in the United States prior to December 4, 2014, may be subject to a patent owned by General Electric Company."

I wonder do people use triangle strips in their commercial programs without permission of General Electric, if they don't they will be using much more resources than they would be using with triangle strip. Well, I didn't care about that patent and I did implement triangle strips in my engine. Screw them, I am not going to handicap my engine because of some stupid patent.

(I do know what vertex buffers are. Didn't know back then.)

Concept is quite easy to understand. Instead of using invidual triangles coordinates you just send continuos strips coordinates. Lets take an example...

Triangle strip would be

ABCDEF , thats 6 positions you have to send.

Without strip and using just invidual triangles it would be

ABCBCDCDEDEF, thats 12 positions you have to send.

So thats 50% less stuff...

As you can see more theres triangles in strip less you have to send. How many triangles there are in new games? Answer is a lot!

For example in Gears of War, Xbox 360, 2006
Wretch - 10,000 polygons with diffuse, specular and normal maps
Boomer - 11,000 polygons with diffuse, specular and normal maps
Marcus - 15,000 polygons with diffuse, specular and normal maps

( http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=43975 )

@thread

Fortunately we will get DLC (hopefully) soon enough so used games and renting games will be gone. And... piracy isn't theft. :)

A provocative, inflamatory and wholly correct statement... I like it!

I think the best way it could be done is support native Brazillian solutions for consoles. They are expensive because your country has a very stiff import tax of 25% or more on goods. It would be good if your country abolished such archaic tariffs. The other way to do it is to take the Sega model and license the console(s) to Brazilian manufacturers for a small licensing fee - which would allow the console to be much cheaper than it is now.

Likewise, the games are expensive due to your horrible taxation method. If your government changed this, then the prices of games should go down to a much more effective level of 100-150 reais.

The other method is to just buy online PC games that circumvent such taxes. There are many PC games available for $10-$20 (22-30 reais).

Ultimately, and unfortunately, the load of burden is on your governments choices of protectionist policies. I think that console makers should try much harder on working on a Brazillian market, but unfortunately, it's just not big enough to warrant such drastic measures such as licensing  a console.

I agree pirates have so much excuses.

You'd like to think there was a difference between downloading a PC rom and the english translation of Mother 3 because you can't understand Japanese, and downloading UFC Unleashed on 360 because you don't feel like paying, but legally there isn't. This, among a few other examples is why I feel piracy is not as black and white as twesterm will eventually come into this thread and make it seem. Love ya T!

Piracy is far too good of a name for people that steal video games.

Real pirates are only second to Robin Hood and his merry men as the coolest thieves ever.

Piracy is the equivalent of repeatedly breaking into a movie theater without paying.

Not really. You take up a seat in that theater. Or at the very least, you take up space in it. Game Piracy doesnt work that way. They only thing that is "taken" is the user's desire to purchase the software, a desire that no one can prove existed to begin with!

Very well, getting onto a plane, sitting in the cargo hold (there's plenty of room left over), and saying "I wouldn't have flown on this plane if I had to pay!"

I find it interesting to see so many people scoff at the idea of piracy not being theft when from a legal definition it is, in fact, not theft.