Thursday, October 14, 2004
Game Development in Singapore
Working in a mobile games studio based in Singapore, I've seen how the Singapore Government has been trying to grow the game development industry in Singapore. I also experience first hand how it's like to setup a games developement team in Singapore.
Which as why when I read a series of articles written by David Michael at GameDev.net, on Game Development in Singapore, it certainly struck a chord with me. The feature consisted of 3 parts, all of which relate closely to my work in one way or another. The first part made a good and sufficient "in-a-nutshell" introduction to Singapore, it's nascent game development industry, and how the Government has been trying to support this industry.
And yes, the author is right to say that "Singapore is serious about games", and I'd like to add from personal experience that there is A LOT of Government support for game developers in Singapore. Singapore doesn't have a strong history of game development. To a certain extent, we are starting from scratch. But what we do have is a generation of young people who grew up playing games, and literally grew up and matured together with the computer game industry, and of course, a Government determined to put Singapore on the game development world map.
While Singaporeans are usually the harshest critics of our own Government, I really believe that in this case, the Government is taking a lot of concrete steps to make this happen, rather than merely providing lip service. Some of the steps include:
And as for me, I'm just thankful that I'll have a good chance of working on what I love to do for some time to come.
Working in a mobile games studio based in Singapore, I've seen how the Singapore Government has been trying to grow the game development industry in Singapore. I also experience first hand how it's like to setup a games developement team in Singapore.
Which as why when I read a series of articles written by David Michael at GameDev.net, on Game Development in Singapore, it certainly struck a chord with me. The feature consisted of 3 parts, all of which relate closely to my work in one way or another. The first part made a good and sufficient "in-a-nutshell" introduction to Singapore, it's nascent game development industry, and how the Government has been trying to support this industry.
And yes, the author is right to say that "Singapore is serious about games", and I'd like to add from personal experience that there is A LOT of Government support for game developers in Singapore. Singapore doesn't have a strong history of game development. To a certain extent, we are starting from scratch. But what we do have is a generation of young people who grew up playing games, and literally grew up and matured together with the computer game industry, and of course, a Government determined to put Singapore on the game development world map.
While Singaporeans are usually the harshest critics of our own Government, I really believe that in this case, the Government is taking a lot of concrete steps to make this happen, rather than merely providing lip service. Some of the steps include:
- Bringing game companies along to major international trade events
- Exposure, publicity and recognition
- Helping fund game development projects
- Incorporating game design and development prominently in the tertiary curriculum
- Creating alliances and communities
And as for me, I'm just thankful that I'll have a good chance of working on what I love to do for some time to come.
Comment on Dell's New Notebook
Having bought a Dell Inspiron 600m notebook 4 months ago and being a very happy customer, it was with a tinge of sadness that I saw it reach obsolescene to be replaced by the new Dell 510m.
As I follow the daily Dell advertisements, I couldn't help but notice that they have replaced the ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 Graphics Chip with the Intel Extreme Graphics 2 Chip. Plus, the ATI chip in the 600m had its own memory while the Intel chip in the 510m shares the memory from RAM. This has given me mixed feelings as, on the one hand, I'm happy that I got the 600m before the graphics performance got all sucky, but on the other hand, I really love what Dell has done with the 600m and am disappointed that I won't be able to get a thin-and-light Dell notebook with a decent graphics subsystem in the future.
Reading this post prompted me to do some further to research to confirm what I had thought all along. I couldn't find any outright comparison between the Intel Extreme Graphics 2 chip and the ATI Mobility Radeon 9000, but I did manage to get some very indicative information.
From this benchmark of the Dell Inspiron 600m, it scored 6986 on Futuremark's 3D Mark 2001. Another benchmark supporting this score can be found here. On the other hand, this benchmark of the Intel Extreme Graphics 2 on a PC with a much faster Pentium 4 processor yielded a far lower 3D Mark score of 2429. In fact, this benchmark was run against an integrated ATI Radeon 9100 which I assume to be pretty similar to the 9000 but probably inferior in performance as it is integrated and does not have dedicated memory.
So there, I am indeed disappointed that an all round notebook in the Dell Inspiron 600m was replaced by a model that's not quite so well-rounded. I loved the 600m because it was well-rounded and strong in all departments. I don't have big demands on games but it has to be able to play at least some non-intensive 3D games. I'm not asking for too much but games have to at least run at their lower levels of detail. Much as I love what Dell has done with their notebooks, I don't think I can ever convince myself to buy the 510m. To get a notebook with a decent graphics performance, I'll have to go for behemoths way over 3kg in weight. Ouch..
Having bought a Dell Inspiron 600m notebook 4 months ago and being a very happy customer, it was with a tinge of sadness that I saw it reach obsolescene to be replaced by the new Dell 510m.
As I follow the daily Dell advertisements, I couldn't help but notice that they have replaced the ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 Graphics Chip with the Intel Extreme Graphics 2 Chip. Plus, the ATI chip in the 600m had its own memory while the Intel chip in the 510m shares the memory from RAM. This has given me mixed feelings as, on the one hand, I'm happy that I got the 600m before the graphics performance got all sucky, but on the other hand, I really love what Dell has done with the 600m and am disappointed that I won't be able to get a thin-and-light Dell notebook with a decent graphics subsystem in the future.
Reading this post prompted me to do some further to research to confirm what I had thought all along. I couldn't find any outright comparison between the Intel Extreme Graphics 2 chip and the ATI Mobility Radeon 9000, but I did manage to get some very indicative information.
From this benchmark of the Dell Inspiron 600m, it scored 6986 on Futuremark's 3D Mark 2001. Another benchmark supporting this score can be found here. On the other hand, this benchmark of the Intel Extreme Graphics 2 on a PC with a much faster Pentium 4 processor yielded a far lower 3D Mark score of 2429. In fact, this benchmark was run against an integrated ATI Radeon 9100 which I assume to be pretty similar to the 9000 but probably inferior in performance as it is integrated and does not have dedicated memory.
So there, I am indeed disappointed that an all round notebook in the Dell Inspiron 600m was replaced by a model that's not quite so well-rounded. I loved the 600m because it was well-rounded and strong in all departments. I don't have big demands on games but it has to be able to play at least some non-intensive 3D games. I'm not asking for too much but games have to at least run at their lower levels of detail. Much as I love what Dell has done with their notebooks, I don't think I can ever convince myself to buy the 510m. To get a notebook with a decent graphics performance, I'll have to go for behemoths way over 3kg in weight. Ouch..
