OpenGL 3.1 : A breath of fresh air

Well, since I already made a post (an angry post I daresay ) about OpenGL 3.0, I think it is about time to make a post about OpenGL 3.1, now that is out.
I actually kept an eye open for the new release, promised to be released 6 months after the initial release. It was late and I thought we were dealing with broken promises again, but it actually wasn’t the case for it, they delayed the release for completing some of the features (Uniform Buffer Objects or UBO). The specification has also some sought after features such as instancing and the neat feature of being able to send buffers from OpenGL to OpenCL.
To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that what OpenGL 3.1 specification carried, were features highly sought after by the OpenGL developers, judging by the posts made previously when the OpenGL ARB asked for feature requests.
Although OpenGL ARB has failed us before (more than once), they managed to release something that was of help to the OpenGL community, Now if they really add the Direct Access Specifications and ATI manages to relese useful drivers… either way, a “Good job” for the OpenGL ARB this time.

“Earth” hour, the Google version

 
I find it both funny and sad when things like these happen.

Now we all know Google is a nice and fluffy company that goes out of it’s way to encourage people to battle global warming…well not really.

Well, this stern reminder is part of what reminds you that stuff like this, is less than of a “community service” than a marketing campaign. Needless to say, such programs can increase the traffic to Youtube which Google owns, as well as any other service that Google manages to squeeze in.

The true irony is that friendship and telorance can help Earth in more than one way, either indirectly by making people worry about things that matter more about what is important (but that makes many people unhappy, doesn’t it ) or avert a war that can directly impact global warming (though there are far more important things involved in a war to worry about)

And this is not my only gripe with Google, consider this example : Google code, well known for hosting many OpenSource projects, is also blocked for Iranians, and such limitations go directly against the spirit of GPL, but again, why should Google host and award free projects anyways ?

And I still meet people that are totally in love with Google, sigh…

Random thoughts

• This school term is almost over, good riddance indeed.
• Obama got sworn in, closing down Guantanamo and promising to review the legal process, but then again, I am too skeptical about what he can acheive when he must confront of the multi-million dollar companies and other powerful political infulences.
• I thought of getting a Samsung Omnia, but will probably not get it,it’s over $600 which is just too expensive, I can think of a host of things I can be doing with that much money.
• I had to resoldier one of my laptop’s adapter contacts twice, both times some sparks were coming out of it, don’t worry, I am not going to get killed because of it catching fire/exploding etc, but having to do it because some idiot technican did not soldier mine well annoys me.
• Intel STILL has not revealed much about Larrabee, I also haven’t followed the OpenGL flamewars for a long time, not that it really matters, but it can be amusing, also some constructive stuff can be learnt there, after all there are many OpenGL veterans over there.
• On a different note, Israel did it again, targeting civilian targets in densly populated areas, shedding a lot of blood while not letting reporters in, and a lot of the Western media did their best at reporting at what small damage (compared to what happened in Gaza) had been taken in Israel, USA as usual completely sided with Israel, making any UN efforts completely useless and something tells me USA will cover all the expenses of the war for Israel. Another thing that I would like to point out to is the very obvious timing, which was close to the last days of Bush and the closeness to the Israeli elections [since there are many people in Israel that will vote based on the kill count], anyhow, my hunches with Israel and USA’s foreign policey are too long to list here, so let’s move along.

Fair use ?!

Today, I was looking at the services offered by a number of Iranian ISPs, and looking at the “Unlimited services” of one of them, namely, a company called “Shatel”, I saw something very interesting, called “Fair use policy” (No, this has nothing to do with copyright rules.)

Before we begin, Unlimited services are supposed to mean that an ISP will not cap the monthly bandwidth, a blessing for someone who downloads a lot of stuff like me.

Sometimes companies do their best to avoid offering an unlimited services, specially if they fear they cannot sustain the strain of too many people of my kind downloading at the same time, and set caps, sometimes as high as 45GB, but they still limit it.

Now, back to the subject, the fine folks over at Shatel have added a “Fair use policy” for the unlimited services that leaves an empty feeling behind, I think nothing reflects it better than an exact translation :

Fair Use Policy

Dear user,

If you are a user of the unlimited services offered by Shatel, this law will apply to your service.

Why Fair Use Policy ?

The purpose of this rule, is your assurance of receiving a high speed and reliable at all hours in the day [tr : aka. We don't have as much bandwidth as we sell to you]. You certainly know that internet services are offered in a shared manner between the users, but Shatel, does not follow the procedures and the custom in advanced countries [tr : Dunno what this means though ;>], and to increase the customer satisfaction, has decreased the sharing ratio to a very low amount [tr : I suppose, that is supposed to mean that their actual bandwidth compared to the amount of bandwidth that they are selling is supposedly better than ISP's in "Advanced" countries].

In such a situation, if some users download large sized files or try peer-to-peer software, the bandwidth that the rest of you are using will be decreased [tr : aka. We sacrifice the users who use up as much an "unlimited" service would allow them to, to cut costs on bandwidth equipment and services, all for the sake of the "greater good"] in the maximum traffic hours, this can lead to reduction in the service speed [tr : See, we are doing this for your sake]

Will this law affect me ?

If you do not download large sized files or do not use peer to peer software, this rule will never affect you, but if you use the said software, please change their usage time to weekends or hours other than the maximum usage hours [8AM to 5PM] to use the service.

What will happen if my usage is high ?

If your usage is high at some of the times, it doesn’t pose a problem from Shatel’s opinion, unless the usage pattern is high and is repeated.

If your usage is consistently high, our sales  experts will contact you and suggest you to use the dedicated service [tr : A term used at least in Iran, meaning that they will warranty to give you the maximum bandwidth, though since this service is used by companies - for being far far more expensive than the already highly expensive internet services in Iran - ,some sleazy ISP's will cripple this "warrantied" service after work hours like 5PM], if the customer does not agree to use the dedicated service and the high usage persists, this might cause Shatel to cut the service the support the rights of some other thousand users [tr : Aren't you over exaggurating a bit ? :>] to suspend or cut your service [tr : For the greater good!].

We greatly thank you for your cooperation [tr : "OBEY"].

As I remember, Comcast and other ISP’s went under fire for blocking or crippling peer to peer services, but none of them have been as arrogant as Shatel, which is the thing that made me go through all the trouble to translate this (I mean, to fail to offer as much as bandwidth that you sell is one thing, to actually fight the customers back is another  – and far worse – thing :<)

Though truth be told, many Iranian ISP’s offer poor services, we should wait for the National telecom company to go public and for the ISP’s to fight further, so the service quality would improve, when will that happen, we will have to wait and see…

Web blocking for the win

Blocking websites in Iran is no news to people knowing about the situation, government itself sets up a list of websites to be blocked, mainly some political sites and pornography sites as well, but this has been taken to the extreme of late, specially when some ISP’s take it upon themselves to block sites and keywords out of their own accord. For example, my ISP, Azadnet, blocks keywords “Hot”,”French”,”Anime” and even “Golden” I absolutely have no idea about some of them, the blocked keywords are too many to list.

But this becomes even crazier when it has been about a month where SSL ports have faced a blacklist/whitelist system, and not from the usual way of government forcing ISP’s to block sites, but from the government provided internet, which currently, is the only legal way of getting internet access for ISP’s. As far as I have researched it, SSL for .net and .org and the rest of the sites is open, but for .com, a whitelist system has been put in place, in other words, any SSL connection leading to a .com site, is blocked, except for Google,Yahoo,Twitter and some services, some widely used sites such as wordpress have not been as lucky to be whitelisted. The main reason is probably the motive to block any SSL proxy services, which are quite effective and difficult to find.

But then again, the use of web proxies that haven’t been blocked yet, as well as other proxy services as well as VPN services have been on the rise, almost universal, to the point that you can find no-one that doesn’t use one of them sometimes, and pretty normal uses as well.

My take on the credit crunch and the economic meltdown

Well, the credit crunch in US soon became a world wide issue, it left it’s mark on the world with – in some cases – record loss of value in the stock market, to the point that share trade was halted indefinitely on some countries like Russia. And as far as I know one of the most significant events in the more recent economical history.

But what really made me want to post about this event, was this piece of news : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7663487.stm

Not only it was written with a rather scathing tone, it was also marked as one of the featured news items, and seeing how Iran was being isolated by the day, and how this will impact plenty of those who do read it, I decided to make a post here, hopefully, it will be, even if it is a small effort, in the right direction.

Let’s start off by saying that I am an Iranian university student, kind of religious, living at Tehran and thanks to the internet, have read a whole lot of stuff about all over the world on the internet, I also have some good internet friends from all over the world, including Americans.

Some people have already jumped on the gun and started to call this “the demise of capitalism”, and some even going as far as Ahmadinejad in calling it “the beginning of the end for USA”.

The put it simply, a whole lot of Iranians disagree with this behavior, and it happens to be the majority of people IMO, though US pressuring Iran less will certainly be an improvement in more than one way, I can’t see them partying about a world-wide recession that is sure to impact Iran eventually.

To trace the problem to the very root of it, it all goes back to the bad blood between West and Iran. From the the USA sponsored and supported coup back at 1950, to the Western countries selling chemical weapons and technology to Iraq and many other issues that have strengthened an “Us against the World” attitude.

This however, has been taken to the extreme of late, with Ahmadinejad being always ready to bash the West, having talked about the Capitalism and the West nearing demise over and over again, while caring little about what is happening to his own country.

While I certainly think the problem of the current credit crunch has roots going deeper than the subprime mortgage issue, basically I feel there are many things that are wrong with the USA government, I think that it has gone too far in supporting their businesses, US has one of the lowest health regulations for products as a developed country, the government has gone out of it’s way more than once to help out businesses, the latter wents as far as EU getting angry enough to place bans and restrictions on US products, the consumerism in USA is also something I really dislike, with the majority of people buying things just because they like to, rather than caring even a bit about things like the environment, the rate at which they are going through earth’s resources and the carbon footprint, I don’t like the way global warming has totally become a political issue, with so many people just being against it because they are told to, and so many scientists being insulted and called “nutjobs” because a handful of scientists are against it.

However, I barely see what is the point in celebrating Americans going poor like this, true, some might be paying the price for low awareness and getting the wrong priorities like not saving, but the blast of a financial crisis is very blind, it doesn’t go and get the greedy billionares that are the first to blame for this problem, they probably knew well about when to pull their funds from the stocks, and they will be far better off than the employee’s that lost their jobs because of this big problem, a lot of the poor people that will be pressured so much because of this fall in the stock market all over the world, are very nice and hardworking, seeing these people losing even more of their happiness to financial problems is NOT fun.

And the saddest part of the story is looking at how things are in the country which these comments are originating from : Ever since Ahmadinejad’s election – with him lying to people through his teeth about bringing professionals to the jobs and having top academics setting his programs – the inflation rose from about %11 to %25 percent – and that’s the admittedly tweaked numbers that do not include house prices and with the estimates going as high as %40. He was also claiming his programs are not as bad as they are told, with the GDP per capita being cushioned with the rising oil prices. He should also win awards for going through ministers at this rate, his administration’s impulsive behavior has impacted the stock market and the industries more than once. And the worst part is yet to come : I don’t really see a good way of going out of this mess, the foreign relations do not show any Good signs, as do the foreign relations, the brain-drain hitting record values and him insisting on an “economic reform” program that was never discussed appropriately and his calling it the supposed savior for this economy over and over again…

/rant

Beyond the frontlines : A n00b’s attempt at bashing Linux.

It’s no secret that there is not a shortage of n00bs world-wide. They live on the same planet as us, same cities and so on… But sometimes, you get exceptional cases, and sometimes it even becomes an exception among the exceptions. This case that I am sharing with you here, is undoubtedly one of those, and here I begin :

First and foremost : TAKE ANY BEVERAGES AND DRINKS AWAY, I GIVE ABSOLUTE NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND FOR NOT CHOKING, HEART ATTACKS SERIZURES AND ANY OTHER PROBLEMS.

(I found this on a website and went through the trouble of translating it into English : )

It’s a lot of marketing farce about some people making a 72,000 line program in VB putting it on Windows, and calling the whole thing ”National OS”, here, they attempt at badmouthing Linux, which is aimed to become the Iranian National Operating System in the long run by the government efforts, and that’s what motivated me to write this stuff, because fraud was becoming commercial libel, so they would sell their “OS” at the quarter of the price of an Original Vista Windows License (Hint : No copyright for US made software)

And here it comes :

[...]

And this is why Linux “has no right to be called Windows” :
1 – An Operating System that cannot have “professional” control over the memory, and allows you to access other memory locations using offsets with or without having the security permissions is not Windows.
2 – An operating system that does not have a powerful data managing software like the “Shell in Windows”
3 – An operating system that doesn’t have a Kernel Like XP
4 – An operating system that cannot work in networked or network-less mode [ed : I have NO idea what he means] or a graphical mode, is not Windows. (And there are people that claim you can make Linux like XP mode (ed : What in the name of…) operate in an event based system with a desktop, because Linux is command line based and you should do a LOT of work to make it event based (ed : If Linus Torvals would ever read this ) (And those people working in Automation know what it means)([ed : I ommit this one because I cannot really understand what he means, even in the n00b compatibility mode, but roughtly something about accusing Iranian government of trying to claim linux of their own or something, again completely baseless, actually the Linux adoption program, not matter how lame and patheticly run it is and no matter how many millions of dollars has been gobbled up in the process, NEVER claim that, they actually say they will not make a distro but will supply resources to them])
5 – An OS that hasn’t had even a bit of it written by an Iranian (ed. : What the ?) can be called a national operating system ?
6 – An operating system that has been an Italian student’s project (Implying as if it was something university related) can ever become something national, even though some companies might have completed it over time.
7 – Most importantly, where is the firewall and the security system for Linux (ed : Wait, the best part is coming up), yeah you keep bragging about it’s security, the security that is gained from being open source is worthless, because no one wastes his time over something this worthless.Because you can use the source to complete it , or attack it.
8 – Another important thing is that over %90 (ed. Number was rounded*) of the software are Windows based and cannot be ran on Linux, that’s a reason for superiority in itself, Apple, with all it’s power, has failed to offer an operating system design that can compete with XP or Vista.
9 – (Ed : Something about Linux adoption being extremely difficult.)
Finally he adds : “I am not saying that Linux is not of use to anybody, a percentage of the professional users that are less than %10 world-wide, and same way that C is open source and is the most secure programming language that has been and will be.(Because of being close to the assembly and it’s direct translation to EXE)
[...]

* Due to various reasons I am not going to give a link to these gems, even though they should deserve it, also some intelligent Iranian people on some forums took the flamebait and got into the flamewar with them, I doubt they would like becoming known over that. But the moment they go into action and try to bring it into the market…

What is exactly wrong with OpenGL 3.0 ?

What is exactly wrong with OpenGL 3.0 ?

Everyone following the stories of OpenGL 3.0, has seen that there has been a great amount of disappointment with OpenGL 3.0, I decided to give my two cents on what had happened as well as giving people a bit of hopefully useful information to people.

Well, OpenGL has been around for over 16 years, and every new version had been maintining the backwards compatibility, approving extensions [which is the "Open" part of the OpenGL standard, it doesn't mean it's Open Source] and adding new core functions in every specification release. The core functionality of a version, has to be implemented to claim complete support for a version, and implementing extensions is optional. But the old design of OpenGL as well as lack of a global direction for functionality, caused the vendors to keep adding extensions to support their hardware’s specific functionality, and challenging the whole point of OpenGL being cross-platform and cross-hardware, since a functionality needs hardware as well as software (drivers) support, potentially leading to vendor lock-in in an “industry standard”. To find the extent of this issue, go and get an OpenGL SDK released by a vendor other than your own Graphics Card’s GPU vendor, and try to run the supplied samples.

Back in 2000, 3DLabs gave a very elaborate proposal for OpenGL 2.0 (I really suggest people to read it before proceeding, it gives you a really very good idea about the current and previous status of OpenGL as well as DirectX’s status back then) , almost all of these suggestions were rejected by OpenGL ARB (Architecture Review Board), causing huge disappointment for the developers, some additions did get approved, like the Vertex and Fragment shader language with a C-style langauge, that helped OpenGL 2 to compete with DirectX, but at the same time, OGL 2.0 was quite unlike an OGL developer’s cherished “OGL 2″ getting it nicknamed as “OpenGL 1.6″ by some. When 3DLabs was killed off by Creative (or rather, reduced to a tiny ”media accelerator” maker – probably completely pointless right now with the current and upcoming AMD and nVidia offerings), things started to really look grim for any serious innovation at OpenGL (though nVidia’s OpenGL support for was not bad)

Meanwhile, DirectX continued to gain momentum. Based on the feedback from the developers and Microsoft learning from their mistakes [which is kind of surprising from them] at DirectX 8, DirectX 9 really started to look like a good option, with a cleaner API, and good documentation, and it indeed became a major competition after the addition of Shader Model 3.0 (Though OpenGL still maintained a clear edge at tasks like Rendering Batches).

OpenGL 2.1 added some minor features. And Geometry shaders of DirectX 10, were approved as an extension. But it didn’t offer any support or extensions for things like Instancing.

And there came the announcement for OpenGL 3.0, as the 2007 Birds of a Feather presentation shows, was focused about making a clean break from the previous versions, a streamlined interface with an object model, eliminating the need for so many extensions, and setting up a framework for future features. It wasn’t even about adding DirectX 10 features, which was promised to be added some time after the release of OGL 3.0, it was meant to be compatible with a lot of existing GPU’s, it was about making code easier to write, a clean interface for getting the best performance and eliminating the overhead of what OpenGL old interface versus what the internal modern hardware really needed.

Plenty of people who wanted to start a project or do a rewrite of existing OGL code, chose to hold back on rewrite or even migration waited, trying to optimize their OpenGL code in the meanwhile. Things started to look even more promising when actual ARB members showed up at OpenGL.org and asked people for features requests and ideas for the new OpenGL…

Then there was a break in communication, making many people anxious, later revealed to have been the point, where the OpenGL ARB chose to scrap the object model, killing off almost everything that OpenGL 3.0 was told to be at OpenGL Birds of a Feather 2007. It was Jan, 2008.

When OpenGL 3.0 was released at August 2008, people where introduced to an OpenGL “3.0″ that :

• Required DirectX 10 class hardware, while Geometry Shader was still an extension, no sign of instancing , global uniforms which were DX10 features.
• Still maintained backwards compatibility with previous OpenGL code, no Object model, and there were still different performance paths for doing things that required extensive knowledge of the underlying hardware [and possibly vendors-specific code] to get the best performance possible.
• Nothing new besides rolling some extensions in as core capabilites as well as adding a “Direct State Access” Extension (which some of the ARB team begged people to go read), it lacked AMD and Intel from the contributors, not a good sign. Direct State Access, would eliminate many state-probing and setting, though able to eliminate a lot of the annoying state setting/probing functions, requires support from other vendors to be portable on various platforms.
• Introducing a deprecation model which marked much of the fixed functionality to be removed at the future versions.

Which though being an improvement over nothing has yet to prove itself to be anything beyond an incremental update. Because the pattern is very similar to OGL 2.0, except being far less significant. Deprecation model doesn’t really work well with big software companies with tons of existing “deprecated” code and they are pretty important for OpenGL ARB to say the least, you either have to fork the specs and fork the driver development and offer two completely different OpenGL code families, highly unlikely with OpenGL developers reaching an all-time low market share.(And ironically, Direct State Access, offers DSA interface for features that are marked to be deprecated from OpenGL and replaced with Shader code)

The release of specs was followed by an immediate outcry from loyal OpenGL developers, specially the one’s that had stalled new projects and rewritings because of the promises, it was followed by by a rush of ARB members trying to limit the impact, giving promises for inclusion of Geometry shader in the next iteration of the code, and promising the object model to become the highest priority (Giving a revolutionary promise for the third time), in further public relations acts Khronos lead told the theRegister that they intend to complete OGL 3.1 in six months, and blamed the CAD companies for the failing to deliver the promised features adding “Games are rebuilt every generation” (He failed to mention that the Graphics engines are not necessarily upgraded if the API is the same). Though another source (a gamedev moderator, which at least for me, is more reputable than Khronos or ARB members) reported AMD to be the reason for the cancellation of original OpenGL 3.0 and declined any direct involvement from the CAD companies (And to be honest, that does sound the sort of thing AMD would do, they have a history of making decisions that yield short term benefits but are wrong by looking at the bigger picture, Not supporting new functionality can also lead to the work of Driver developers, specially if they had just done a re-write, also their DX10 hardware was and is selling like hotcakes, Forcing OGL users/developers to migrate to DX10 hardware sounds like the sort of thing AMD would do, AMD has also promised a working OpenGL 3.0 Drivers along with the extensions). Also, OpenGL.org is also collecting and highlighting news and blog posts that would make OGL 3.0 look better, even going as far as linking to a very poorly written blog post that compared OGL 3.0 to KDE 4.0 (KDE 4.0 was about giving good performance and features and making a clean break FOR GOD’s SAKE, they only ran to a lot of bugs, and once debugged it can pose a serious threat to GNOME, which is unlike OpenGL 3.0 in all the points mentioned) that blog post also called DirectX “A multi-million dollar mistake” and claimed a huge interest in OpenGL.

Overall, as a result of this whole ordeal, OpenGL probably lost forever to DirectX in the competition of offering features and performance on Windows, that should lose cost OpenGL almost all the game developers (Most of the Linux users who want serious gaming, already have Windows to play demanding games when they take a break, which also allows for rebooting) also OpenGL ARB lost their trust and respect from the OpenGL community as can be observed in the thread following the announcement, OGL’s market share is sure to take a hit, and with even less repect (I think the most crucial thing about the original OGL 3 was that it would have been taken seriously, and that would promise a lot of support and useful feedback from developers, as well as serious support from vendors, but this OpenGL 3.0 did quite the opposite effect)

As for me as someone who has a certain knowledge of Computer graphics algorithms and hardware, I will still try to make a logical choice on choosing API according what I need, if I want a cross platform API for my development, I will go for OpenGL, if a good number of the people at whom my program is aimed can be expected to use DirectX and it is a demanding program, I will go through the trouble of learning DirectX and not bothering with OpenGL…

Comments/corrections will always be welcome.

-Unknown identifier

The tales of woes with my ISP

Well, so I subscribe to my current ISP around March, 2007 and their service is simply lovely, they didn’t limit the speed, so they gave you as much bandwidth as they could. After a while and, boom, they put a speed limit back in and also at that time, they had taken in so many customers that they are unable to provide them with an acceptable service at the peak hours of usage EVEN with the speed limit in place, at the peak internet usage hours, my ping times to google would jump to 1500ms or even higher, to the point that at the Norooz holidays, it even hit 2500ms.

And it seems that something wierd is going on with my internet (background info : In many ISPs in Iran, the customers are put inside different netblocks and the inbound and outbound packets go through like 3-7 layers until they get to the outside world) – and please disregard the date of the entries in the router

08/01/2003  15:50:47 **UDP Flood (per Min) Stop**  (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:45 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 217.219.117.38, 62872->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:45 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 217.219.63.176, 63048->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:42 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 78.38.134.44, 1145->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:41 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 89.144.160.140, 62774->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:35 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 78.38.134.44, 1513->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:32 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 85.9.76.54, 61988->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:31 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 89.165.67.31, 1513->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:30 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 125.162.59.17, 1513->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:26 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 89.144.160.140, 63008->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:23 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 91.98.155.115, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:23 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 80.191.222.14, 1464 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:16 **UDP Flood to Host** 217.219.62.13, 1513->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:16 **UDP Flood to Host** 217.218.221.112, 1513->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:16 **UDP Flood to Host** 80.191.113.210, 1513->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:16 **UDP Flood to Host** 89.165.45.77, 1513->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:16 **UDP Flood to Host** 82.99.245.235, 1513->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:16 **UDP Flood to Host** 84.241.6.147, 1513->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:16 **UDP Flood to Host** 85.9.76.54, 62041->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:16 **UDP Flood to Host** 85.9.112.141, 62070->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:16 **UDP Flood to Host** 85.9.120.89, 13894->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:16 **UDP Flood to Host** 85.9.106.55, 1513->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:16 **UDP Flood to Host** 91.98.155.162, 1513->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:16 **UDP Flood to Host** 85.15.20.147, 1513->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:16 **UDP Flood to Host** 82.99.205.77, 1513->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:16 **UDP Flood to Host** 91.98.71.54, 1513->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:16 **UDP Flood to Host** 89.165.8.158, 1513->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:16 **UDP Flood to Host** 89.165.7.7, 13865->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:16 **UDP Flood to Host** 78.39.43.35, 1513->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  15:50:16 **UDP Flood to Host** 217.219.117.22, 61986->> 192.168.2.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:40 **UDP Flood (per Min) Stop**  (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 84.241.42.43, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 217.219.181.86, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 91.98.154.156, 62252 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 217.219.63.10, 62755 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 85.9.120.82, 64660 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 84.47.235.74, 12963 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 78.39.76.37, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 213.233.162.67, 62661 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 85.185.3.151, 1460 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 217.219.63.184, 11796 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 80.191.107.121, 23861 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 83.248.120.11, 61744 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 81.12.107.33, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 89.221.83.242, 31816 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 85.185.144.242, 61900 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 84.47.235.72, 12464 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 89.165.47.153, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 217.218.252.34, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 213.207.213.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 89.165.44.204, 62441 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 85.9.120.89, 12772 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 84.241.40.23, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 85.185.175.107, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 85.185.88.75, 26641 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 89.165.72.159, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 217.219.117.22, 62535 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 77.237.94.99, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 91.186.211.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 85.198.33.5, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 124.13.10.243, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 89.165.89.93, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 217.219.80.14, 54696 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 86.154.203.240, 49560 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 80.191.251.93, 52765 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 78.38.128.122, 61342 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 85.15.10.110, 10916 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 85.9.74.201, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 91.98.155.115, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 80.191.224.67, 1562 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 80.191.222.14, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 89.221.83.241, 31581 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 85.9.120.82, 63958 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 217.219.48.9, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 78.39.76.20, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 91.98.155.69, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 217.219.184.230, 49696 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 85.133.194.38, 63709 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 78.39.76.6, 61571 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 80.191.230.230, 5207 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 85.9.76.232, 62342 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 85.9.123.26, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 91.98.132.25, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 85.185.144.242, 61969 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 217.219.181.86, 63686 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 82.99.222.13, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 80.191.219.65, 63477 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 85.185.92.56, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 217.219.63.10, 62792 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 84.47.235.72, 13563 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:36 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 217.218.249.4, 64069 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:35 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 83.147.195.134, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:34 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 75.125.31.130, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:34 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 192.168.1.1, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:34 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 89.221.83.229, 38056 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:31 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 192.168.1.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:31 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 122.167.142.187, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:30 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 74.53.236.98, 1514 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:24 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 192.168.1.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:22 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 89.165.89.93, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:22 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 82.99.222.13, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:22 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 217.219.63.184, 10500 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:27:10 **UDP Flood to Host** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 217.218.223.162, 61730 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  14:15:20 **Vecna Scan** 10.15.0.2, 1723->> 10.21.129.61, 1227 (from ATM1 Inbound)
08/01/2003  13:01:29 **UDP Flood (per Min) Stop**
08/01/2003  13:01:28 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 192.168.1.12, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  13:01:25 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 192.168.238.238, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  13:01:20 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 192.168.0.107, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  13:01:20 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 91.184.88.13, 59419 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  13:01:19 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 192.168.1.3, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  13:01:15 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 192.168.1.10, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  13:01:02 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 74.53.236.98, 1514 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  13:00:59 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 213.207.213.2, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound)
08/01/2003  13:00:59 **UDP Flood (per Min)** 192.168.2.2, 1513->> 80.191.113.210, 1513 (from PPPoE1 Outbound

A look into the whole Rasterizer VS Raytracer story – part 2

Raytracer :

A raytracer, uses a different model than rasterizerization. In a raytracer, for each pixel, a ray [or more] is generated, raytracer traces the ray through the scene, generating more rays at collision with objects if needed [for example when a ray hits a glass, some of the light goes through the glass [refraction] and some of it is reflected, so a single ray is turned into two rays], and different formula’s would indicate the final color that the ray will return. The more rays are casted [more rays for pixels, more rays for a greater resolution and extra rays for collision,etc] and the greater the depth that they go to [because the recusion can't go forever] the more realistic the scene would look like, but it will take more time to render, and raytracer as it is, is far slower than Rasterization. As you can see, the raytracer is a better approximation of the real world optics, so getting a realistic result is easier and you don’t have to resort to many tricks and hacks to get it to work [for example, by casting one or more shadow rays, you can generate very realistic shadows, far better than those generated by rasterization and the load of hacks you have to use]. And you can actually achieve global illumination by casting lots and lots of rays, but it is extremely slow and completely out of the question for a real-time rendering with the current hardware right now. [Though techniques such as photon mapping is something far easier to do]. However, it should be noted that OpenGL and DirectX cannot be rendered in a raytracer engine or at the very least all of most of the effects will be broken [if you are unsure about this, re-read the description for rasterizer here again - though you can use rasterization hardware to accelerate raytracing using GPGPU, or even use Rasterization for casting rays when you can]. As I said before, the biggest compromise of Raytracing is the overhead involved with it and the difficulty to design an efficent hardware, against rasterization, these are the main things that have held it back and will probably hold it for some time. [IIRC, Raytracing was first introduced back at 1968]

There have been some efforts of making a Raytracer hardware, though it must be noted that due to the nature of Raytracing, you will need a lot of random accesses to the memory, so even using caches cannot do much to reduce the impact of a large scene like a terrian being rendered using raytracing. Raytracing is also different in the sense that we need to use a space partitioning technique such as kd-tree’s or BSP’s [So we trace the rays through paritions and each time check the ray intersection with the objects that are inside the current partition we are in], and it is even more difficult to deal with if you want to support dynamic scenes.  Implementing all this stuff on hardware is a real hassle, currently some projects like SaarCOR and RPU exist, but they are far from being complete, the most powerful one will probably be the Intel Larrabee which is being heavily hyped by Intel [yet very little info has been disclosed about it, we know that it is supposed to be a poly-core chip with vector processing capabilites though].

To be continued.