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Games & Graphics

The most popular blog posts about games & graphics on Hacker News. 211 posts.

2025
121

Stop Killing Games

tl;dr: If you're an EU citizen, sign the Stop Killing Games initiative here. Or, if you're in the UK, sign this petition. A month ago, I had a second video on self-hosting taken down. YouTube said it was 'harmful or dangerous content'. I appealed that, but my appeal was rejected. Luckily, I have enough reach I was…

122

Spline Distance Fields

Earlier this year I decided to put my main project Tangerine on hold indefinitely and began prototyping a new renderer in an unfamiliar language using a totally new graphics API with the goal of overcoming all of Tangerine's technical shortcomings. The new renderer is an eccentric CPU ray tracer called Star Machine…

137

Lánczos Interpolation Explained (2022)

When you resize, rotate, or in any way transform an image; or more generally when you resample some discrete signal, the software you are using must _interpolate_ between the discrete points to produce a result. Linear and cubic interpolation are easy to explain, but Lánczos interpolation, one of the most popular…

143

Bullfrog in the Dungeon

In January of 1995, Electronic Arts bought the prestigious British games studio Bullfrog Productions for an undisclosed sum that was rumored to be in the neighborhood of $45 million. The lives of the 35 or so people who worked at Bullfrog were transformed overnight. Peter Molyneux, the man who had built the studio’s…

145

Python 3, Pygame, and Debian Bookworm on the Miyoo A30

What if I told you you can get a full Linux computer with WiFi and a GPU in a small, pocket form factor for about $30 USD on AliExpress ? You might say “but what about the new tariffs?” and I’d say “oof, oh right, okay who knows, but it’s probably still pretty cheap!” (Edit: looks like you can get one for about $40…

148

Why WinQuake exists and how it works

When I took a look at the history of Quake binaries, they all made sense to me. quake.exe was the original release, able to run on DOS and Windows 95. Then came vquake.exe to support the hardware accelerated chip Vérité 1000. Later, glquake.exe generalized hardware acceleration to any vendor providing OpenGL drivers…

149

Anno 1800: Shadows of Beauty

While playing Anno 1800 , I noticed something which I’ve never noticed before in any other game (but to be fair, I don’t play too many city builders): The sun keeps a position relative to the camera and thus the shadows alway s fall from left to right: