how do videogames work ?
 

how do i put a disc into a console and it reads this thin plastic circle and have it create such beautiful things, such as bioshock ?

i don't understand this process at all, or how the data is put into the discs.

can someone please understand the whole process ?

One word: magic

More specifically,

Magic Gnomes.

There is a class you can take at Hogwarts that teaches the whole process. It is pretty advanced so you have to be a sixth or seventh year student to take the class.

They pretty much just take a computer and put it inside the videogame system case. So it's fairly easy, really.

101010

It's all you need to know really, it's the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

There's Gremlins inside every video game console.

There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't.

Put that on a t-shirt and every nerd in the country will buy one!

I'm pretty sure they get the data into the discs the same way they get the cheese into Cheez-Its. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQsObzDsYd8

http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/frustrations/5aa9/

I knew there had to be one already ;)

A serious answer would be appreciated. For once.

You're assuming it's a serious question.

Video games are just computer programs.

Basically, they look something like this:

10 Print "Press 1 to attack, 2 to run away.";
20 Input poop;
30 If poop=1 then Print "You attack and win, the end."; End;
40 If poop=2 then Print "You run away and lose, the end."; End;
50 Print "You are an idiot.";
60 End;

Except times a billion.

The tech behind videogames has always amazed and interested me. Take Bioshock for example; how does a security camera "see" you? Its very complex math and programming and not magic, but I still get a sense of wonder at the whole thing.

if character resides in this area to that area for x greater than y seconds then sound alarm.

used to be a dev.

here's a simplified overview:
game starts like a normal windows app. runs in infinite loop.
player starts a level.
game loads player's position, all vertices of objects (usually only those in player's frustum), texture map, draws the frame on the screen
process input, process AI, update object positions, update view, run whatever else logic, redraw screen

i havent played bioshock. i know in splinter cell, the way they detected bodies that can be seen was they only checked the x,y,z coordinates of a body and if it's inside predetermined coordinates (usually lighted areas), the alarm would go off. it's possible they attach an invisible line of sight to the camera and if it intercepts the x,y,z coordinate of the player, it 'sees' you.

In most games, when you are "seen" it's based on a particular coordinate that is the center of the player, rather than on the wireframe model. So a fat dude with his belly sticking around the corner would be just as invisible as Keira Knightly standing in the same place.

Also it drives me crazy in games when you can clearly see a guard 200 yards away, but he's looking right at you and does nothing until you're within 100 yards (or whatever the setting is).

Sheesh, stop giving misinformation. Clearly from the consensus of the other posts it is magic. Dwarves, fyi, are better at the coding due to larger pools of essence. It just tends to be a pretty draining endeavor when they are together in large groups.

What a party pooper.

Magic is a better answer than the one I heard years ago.

"Ehhh...all those game systems run on DOS."

Considering many of the ones coming out recently:

They don't.

"It's a <i>kind</i> of Magic."


-Connor 'The Highlander' MacLeod '86