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Latest Comments by Purple Library Guy
Be a jerk cloud in Rain on Your Parade - releasing April 15
15 Mar 2021 at 6:55 pm UTC Likes: 1

Seattle? Rain paradise?! Bah. As a Vancouverite we concede nothing to our neighbour city on that score! There's no way they have more rain than we do.

Paradox resumes development on Surviving Mars, new update and expansion planned
15 Mar 2021 at 6:51 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: AnzaInteresting tidbit that I noticed is that buildings for the In-Dome Buildings Pack have been made in Blender. Reference: https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/464920/view/5101988315910690730 [External Link] (article goes through the new buildings in bit more detail)
Made in a blender? What are they made of, paper mache? :wink:

Windows 'not an emulator' compatibility tool Wine 6.4 out now
15 Mar 2021 at 3:41 am UTC Likes: 1

[quote=Guest]
Quoting: LeonardK
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: PinguinoA one-sentence summary would be quite hard
Challenge accepted.
Quoting: PinguinoCould anyone give me a one-sentence summary on the difference between emulators and translation layers?
Think of WINE as an interpreter for spoken languages. WINE translates the language between Windows and Linux, while an emulator attempts an exact recreation of hardware with software.
As pointed out earlier, this is actually not really correct or perhaps confusing -- the language on (most) Linux systems is x86, as is on (most) Windows. But, while the language is the same, Windows and Linux have different "higher level concepts", and Wine can sort of work as a dictionary for looking up the Windows "meaning". But the analogy falls apart rather fast.

The point is: An operating system doesn't execute a program, really, it just nudges the CPU to do the actual execution. The OS is just there for outsourcing some tasks that otherwise every program would need to do (much simplified). Programs ask the OS to do these tasks for them, however the interface b/w OS <-> program differs from Windows to Linux.

So, while most parts (in theory) of a Windows and a Linux binary are pretty much the same, they differ when it comes to asking the OS to do tasks like "render picture on screen". In that case, the program can then consult Wine and Wine tells Linux what to do.

Side note: Actually the complete Windows OS API is already such a translation layer. Because the "actual" OS (the Kernel) when using Windows doesn't "speak Windows" (win32) but NT. So while on Windows asking to render a picture looks like:

program -> Win32 API -> NT API

on Linux it looks like:

program -> Wine -> Linux API

So, basically, Wine is a Win32 API implementation (and program loader) for the Linux kernel instead of the NT kernel one.
What exactly are you trying to prove with all that? because all I see is a kid just wanting to prove some one wrong on the internet again. See this is the reason I don't post here much, there is always some self proclaimed Linux GURU wanting to prove you wrong. It's petty.
I know all about coding, how operating systems work, and how API's communicate, you don't need to prove any thing to me. Don't just assume other people don't know any thing.
Technically, you're (almost) right, congratulations to you. But you missed one stupidly obvious and huge point, the OP's original question.
"Could anyone give me a one-sentence summary on the difference between emulators and translation layers?"
He wanted a short summary of the difference between them. Not a lecture of the in's and out's of how API's work.
So in a short summary, I am still right, because while WINE is an API (like you say), it still just [/i]acts as a translator/interpretor between Windows and Linux API's.
I could have always just said "kernel>api>wine api>api>kernel", but that's not what he asked for is it?
Dude, chill.

Windows 'not an emulator' compatibility tool Wine 6.4 out now
14 Mar 2021 at 9:08 am UTC

Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: PinguinoCould anyone give me a one-sentence summary on the difference between emulators and translation layers? I've done some searching and I think I got the gist of it (low-level emulators are basically trying to recreate the emulated OS instead of just wrapping individual functions), but I couldn't see much distinction between high-level emulation and a translator.
In narrow sense emulator can mean something that emulates hardware. I.e. imagine something that implements one CPU architecture in software to run on another CPU architecture (example - Qemu).

In a wider sense it means any kind of imitation. So in the first sense Wine is not emulating hardware. But in the second sense Wine is emulating Windows.
Maybe, but I'm pretty sure the people who named Wine would beg to differ on that. I think the position would be something along the lines of, an emulator for Windows would be something that basically reproduced the Windows API-whatever in userspace and had Windows programs run in it, whereas what Wine was doing was just translating the Windows program's requests so Linux would understand them.

Stellaris: Nemesis launches April 15 giving you more power than ever
14 Mar 2021 at 1:59 am UTC Likes: 2

You know, when I think about what you hear of spies actually doing that was useful in, say, WW II, the single most prominent thing never seems to feature in the espionage in these games: Finding out where the enemy military is going and what their attack plans are, while misleading the enemy about what your military is doing. Nobody ever does that, but it was the main event for WW II spies. It's what breaking the Enigma machines was mostly about.

It'd be cool if you could use espionage to make like "ghost fleets" the enemy thought were going one way, and/or spoof enemy sensors so they didn't spot your navy heading for their key worlds. And so you could see like a glowy line from an enemy fleet showing what its current medium-range destination was. Like that. Not to mention something simple like a good spy figuring out a year before another race declares war that they are planning to attack. Mind you, in Stellaris it's often kind of a hint when they start making claims on your systems . . .
Espionage in a lot of Civ-type and MOO-type games is pretty boring IMO . . . I often end up just pushing the counter-espionage. And I especially don't want to be putting a bunch of special effort into spies so I can steal someone else's technology--that's a loser approach. I should be putting that effort into having the best technology in the first place; the inferior civilizations eating my dust can try to steal my technology.

Oh, another possibility--if your spies can steal the plans to a foreign power's ship types, you could get an advantage against that design in battle, kind of like the way the Curators give you advantage against the big monsters. Of course when they upgraded to different weapons or armour the advantage would erode.

Paradox resumes development on Surviving Mars, new update and expansion planned
14 Mar 2021 at 1:43 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Guest
Quoting: NezchanAll I want is for them to rework the terraforming so you're not left grinding reseeding rockets over and over again, as if plants wouldn't spread on their own given O2, temp and water at the right levels.
If it were based on my garden, no they wouldn't.

-- edit
Jokes aside, actually without pollinators and wind or animals to distribute seeds, plants would not spread on their own regardless of other favourable conditions.
Well, there would be wind, so I suppose things like grasses and ferns would spread but flowering plants mostly wouldn't . . . but presumably if you're gonna do terraforming and start some plants going, introducing some bees and whatnot should be a phase.

Interactive movie adventure The Dark Side of the Moon is out now
13 Mar 2021 at 6:35 pm UTC

Quoting: Nezchan
Quoting: dpanterIf you're referring to the Pink Floyd album, "obscure" ain't the word you're looking for. It's one of the most well known and most highly regarded albums of all times. :wub:

Game looks cool as well, great trailer!
Now if they wanted to be cryptic, they'd say "It looks good, but not as good as several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a Pict."
First bit of Pink Floyd I ever heard.

Nightfall Hacker is a turn-based strategy homage to The Nightfall Incident
11 Mar 2021 at 10:47 pm UTC

When I hear "Nightfall Incident" all I think of is that old classic Isaac Asimov story "Nightfall".

The best Linux distros for gaming in 2021
11 Mar 2021 at 12:17 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Redface
Quoting: PangaeaKinda strange to mention Ubuntu but not the better alternative Linux Mint. Since starting with Mint, I've never had the urge to distro hope again. It simply works.

Steam and all their DRM can jump off a cliff tho.
Mint is kind of Ubuntu + some extra packages, not a complete distribution on its own.
So you can consider it as included.
Well if we're going to be snippy, Ubuntu is kind of Debian "+ some extra packages, not a complete distribution on its own."