Intensive Gaming Diary

The Use of Memory in Game Consoles

Posted on March 12, 2024March 13, 2024 by Viljami

Today’s topic for this blog is the use of memory. I decided to write about the use of memory in game consoles. We are dealing with things like memory cards, hard disks and random access memory. I also tell you a bit about processors and how computers deal with the actual ways in which the player interacts with the game.

This is not a science writing but more like something that I wanted to briefly write to you since I happen to have some experience in playing these video games and I also have this background in studying and working with computers. I have been playing games a lot. I have read a book or two about the use of memory and also studied a lot about this subject.

What really made a difference in the use of memory for video game consoles was the introduction of the optical drive. You did have a space for couple, maybe four, megabytes for your game. Well, like you might know, a CD-ROM disc has somewhat a space of 650 MB. So the amount of space was more than 100 times larger.

What about saved games? A supported disk drive was introduced with the release of the original Xbox. It might be the first game console to have a hard drive. Before this we had to use memory cards for storing and also organizing our saved games. Hard disks also allowed many other things. It also made installing games to the hard drive a norm.

I am trying to explain the difference between temporary memory (like RAM in the world of computers) and staying memory (HDD and/or SSD drives). So basically RAM, or Random Access Memory is something that the system uses while it is powered. After the power is cut off the memory disappears. In programming you use different variables to store the data temporarily.

Hard drives can save data that is included in these variables so that it can be accessed also later on. Earlier there were typically HDD drives used which offer a lot of space but they are much slower in processing the data than newer and more expensive SSD hard disks. The data in a SSD or HDD can be saved in different forms. Sometimes the programmers can use text files and sometimes forms like JSON. Data can also be serialized in a way. There are many possibilities. Basically you are saving something to some file or files. Sometimes there is also some sort of database used.

The data moves between the components of your gaming device through different kinds of busses. You can probably read more about electronics from your favorite search engine or maybe you can create a prompt for AI. I am not going to try to expain this so thoroughly at the moment. But if you are interested you can find more about this.

How does the gaming console work basically? There is a loop in the program code that keeps refreshing the screen. The frequency is blondly called FPS. It stands for Frames Per Second. This can be for example 60. The system reads all values of variables that are in the code and updates everything regarding to the values that the variables hold.

The game system detects any interactions using the code. The game detecs what controllers buttons are pressed and for how long. Then the screen keeps updating. There’s a lot of things happening. The main source for the things that are happenig is the actual source code of the game. You might think that it is easy to read a source code but it actually is pretty. It is way harder than reading something that a blogger has written to a blog post. And only the person that has written the code might fully understand it. Sometimes even this is not possible. The code can and is actually preferred to have comments in it also.

So to summarize this blog post we can conclude that memory is used in many ways in game consoles. Data is saved and handled. We have come a long way from game consoles like Sega Mega Drive in which you aren’t able to save at all (you do if you have a battery inside the game cartridge) to modern consoles in which you have huge SSD drives of several tera bytes of space for lot more content than just your saved game data. I encourage you to find more information if you are deeply motivated in learning more about this very interesting topic.

Black Future 88

Posted on March 10, 2024 by Viljami

Black Future 88 is a 2D shoot-em-up game for Nintendo Switch. I picked it up as I bought eight more games to my game collection of Switch games. I bought these games as they were on sale. I paid about 22 or 23 euros per game. These games were on sale so I decided to get a bunch of them. Black Future 88 was the first game that I started to play from these games that I recently bought.

This shoot-em-up has nice looking graphics, animation and visual effects, although the graphics are two-dimensional, and also some nice background music. The content is styled to be sci-fi or cyberpunk. The game offers some nice action. Basically you try to avoid getting hit by enemies ammunition and try to kill them before they get you. As you go on shooting everything that moves you collect items from dead enemies. When you die you start the run over and also your weapons get reset.

You can handle two weapons at a time. So, there are some elements of strategy also. As you die and your run ends you get points which unlock new items to be available in the game. You can also unlock new characters this way.

While this is a fun 2D shoot-em-up the game does get a bit repetitive. Also the story is nonexistent. You get the items completely randomly. The game seems to be looping through as you try to collect more points and level-ups run by run. This is a small game and not your typical triple A game. The price of the game was somewhat low and I also got some discount. So I didn’t pay a whole lot for this one. I actually paid only fourteen euros for this one. I think that is a fair price as I have already spent many hours playing this one.

I am not even near to complete the game. I could find information that Black Future 88 takes about five and a half hours to complete. I think that is very accurate information. As the art in this game is very comfortable the game lacks a deeper insight that would make you more than just superficially addicted to playing it. It’s repetitiveness reminds me of an old MS-DOS game. You could compare it to a shooting game like Space Commanders that is a Space Invaders clone. The only interesting way to try to complete that game is to try to beat the high score which also gets deleted when you actually quit the game. This comparison can tell you how it actually feels to play Black Future 88.

I could recommend this peace of gaming if you like small indie games. If you like to go deep and explore and feel the game and want an interesting story this might not be a game for you. The cheap price feels comfortable. This game is a small one and doesn’t even try compete with games like Breath of the Wild or something like that. So, it is an enjoyable game that has its flaws. I think there are some reasons that make me like this game.

NBA 2K23 – What Determines If Your Three-Point-Shot Goes In or Not?

Posted on February 29, 2024 by Viljami

In this blog post I am going to break it down with the three-point-shot. What does determine if it goes in or not? First of all I have to say that I am not a programmer of this game. I don’t have a direct access to the source code of this game. My conclusions are relied on purely observing the software while I have been playing NBA 2K23. I have to mention that I do know a lot about programming as you might already know. I also have some knowledge of playing real basketball which helps me to draw these points.

Release of the shot

You get to set a release for the shot while you start to shoot the three-pointer. Now every release seems to be different. I can see that this mechanism that detects your shots release is very precise. It counts every millisecond. It is hard to make the release a perfect one for every shot. Sometimes also a perfect release has to be achieved in a random period of time. So, the best release can be and sometimes is different and it can also be somewhat random, also.

Your players shooting skill

Your player has the ability to shoot a three-pointer. This makes your player a better shooter. So, there are more shots going in. Your player has a very unique ability to shoot. You are getting customed to setting a good timing and rythm for your shot. Although you can maximize your skill of shooting but every shot never goes in. You have to miss one way or another.

Your defender

You can get yourself some space before you start to shoot. This makes it easier for the shot to be a successful one. I have some idea that some defending players have a skill that makes their opponent to miss more likely while they are defending a player.

Who is making the assist

I am playing currently NBA 2K23 with Philadelphia 76ers. I have noticed that when James Harden passes me the ball the success is more likely. There might be some kind of a variable that adjusts the propability more closer when Harden is making the assist.

Every shot won’t go in. Every shot also is unique. If we would gather a table of some sort of the different variables we could see how these values affect the propability of the shot being a successful one. This information is, of course, very valuable for the developers of this game. I can deeply understand why they aren’t sharing this information just for everyone. Also, this information is only my own conclusions that I have made playing the game. It also does have something to do with that I am somewhat a technically capable person in a way.

This conclusion was very short. It might help you to realize how the game actually works. It is also an answer to some of my thoughts about why am I not succeeding more better in shooting the three-pointer in NBA 2K23. So, without further reverse-engineering we can continue to play some more NBA 2K23. And maybe study a bit more about programming and game development.