Definitions
- 1. RAM There are two different types of RAM: DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) SRAM (Static Random Access Memory). The two types of RAM differ in the technology they use to hold data, with DRAM being the more common type. In terms of speed, SRAM is faster. DRAM needs to be refreshed thousands of times per second while SRAM does not need to be refreshed, which is what makes it faster than DRAM This will always be used in computer games whether developers want to or not because it is something that will always be used in gaming because DRAM and SRAM happens automatically. It is useful because it speeds up the machines CPU Stands for "Central Processing Unit." This is the pretty much the brain of your computer. It processes everything from basic instructions to complex functions. Any time something needs to be computed, it gets sent to the CPU. So in many ways the cpu is the most important thing in a computer. In gaming the CPU will help run the programs are developers are using can be sped up or decreased depending on the strength of the CPU. Graphics Processor Used primarily for 3-D applications, a graphics processing unit is a single-chip processor that creates lighting effects and transforms objects every time a 3D scene is redrawn. These are mathematically-intensive tasks, which otherwise, would put quite a strain on the CPU. Lifting this burden from the CPU frees up cycles that can be used for other jobs. The first company to develop the GPU was NVIDIA Inc. Its GeForce 256 GPU is capable of billions of calculations per second, can process a minimum of 10 million polygons per second, and has over 22 million transistors, compared to the 9 million found on the Pentium III. Its workstation version called the Quadro, designed for CAD applications, can process over 200 billion operations a second and deliver up to 17 million triangles per second.
- 2. Used primarily for 3-D applications, a graphics processing unit is a single-chip processor that creates lighting effects and transforms objects every time a 3D scene is redrawn. These are mathematically-intensive tasks, which otherwise, would put quite a strain on the CPU. Lifting this burden from the CPU frees up cycles that can be used for other jobs. The first company to develop the GPU is NVIDIA Inc. Its GeForce 256 GPU is capable of billions of calculations per second, can process a minimum of 10 million polygons per second, and has over 22 million transistors, compared to the 9 million found on the Pentium III. Its workstation version called the Quadro, designed for CAD applications, can process over 200 billion operations a second and deliver up to 17 million triangles per second. In gaming it is used so that the computers can show the graphics that the machine can handle. It also is some times used to hold the ram. Video Display/Output ( LCD, Monochrome, Colour) A display device is an output device for presentation of information in visual or tactile form (the latter used for example in tactile electronic displays for blind people).When the input information is supplied as an electrical signal, the display is called an electronic display. This is only needed for humans as we can’t see what the machine is doing This is used in gaming to let gamers and developers see what the machines are doing. Sound/Audio Audio is sound within the acoustic range available to humans. An audio frequency (AF) is an electrical alternating current within the 20 to 20,000 hertz (cycles per second) range that can be used to produce acoustic sound. In computers, audio is the sound system that comes with or can be added to a computer. An audio card contains a special built-in processor and memory for processing audio files and sending them to speakers in the computer. An audio file is a record of captured sound that can be played back. Sound is a sequence of naturally analog signals that are
- 3. converted to digital signals by the audio card, using a microchip called an analog-to- digital converter (ADC). When sound is played, the digital signals are sent to the speakers where they are converted back to analog signals that generate varied sound. Storage Media Storage media is the physical device used to store data. A few examples of storage media are, floppy discs, CD ROMs, tapes, external hard drives, or USB flash drives. In gaming it used in computer and game consoles normaly there is 500GB Power Supply A power supply is used to get electricity to the console. In gaming this is used to power handheld sets and consoles. Software Kernel (operating system) This is what runs computers and consoles an example of this is windows 8 what goes on computers HCI
- 4. short for human-computer Interaction, a discipline concerned with the study, design, construction and implementation of human-centric interactive computer systems. A user interface, such as a GUI, is how a human interacts with a computer, and HCI goes beyond designing screens and menus that are easier to use and studies the reasoning behind building specific functionality into computers and the long-term effects that systems will have on humans. HCI is a very broad discipline that encompasses different specialties with different concerns regarding computer development: computer science is concerned with the application design and engineering of the human interfaces; sociology and anthropology are concerned with the interactions between technology, work and organization and the way that human systems and technical systems mutually adapt to each other; ergonomics is concerned with the safety of computer systems and the safe limits of human cognition and sensation; psychology is concerned with the cognitive processes of humans and the behavior of users; linguistics is concerned with the development of human and machine languages and the relationship between the two. As computers become more and pervasive in culture, designers are increasingly looking for ways to make interfacing with devices easier, safer and more efficient. LAN LAN is short for local area network. supplies networking capability to a group of computers in close proximity to each other such as in an office building, a school, or a home. A LAN is useful for sharing resources like files, printers, games or other applications. A LAN in turn often connects to other LANs, and to the Internet or other WAN In gaming this would be used by developers when they all work in the same network GPRS Short for General Packet Radio Service, a standard for wireless communications which runs at speeds up to 115 kilobits per second, compared with current GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) systems' 9.6 kilobits. GPRS, which supports a wide range of bandwidths, is an efficient use of limited bandwidth and is particularly suited for sending and receiving small bursts of data, such as e-mail and Web browsing, as well as large volumes of data.
- 5. Gamers use this when they look up how to get through a game. WAP Short for the Wireless Application Protocol, a secure specification that allows users to access information instantly via handheld wireless devices such as mobile phones, pagers, two-way radios, smartphones and communicators. WAP supports most wireless networks. WAPs that use displays and access the Internet run what are called microbrowsers-- browsers with small file sizes that can accommodate the low memory constraints of handheld devices and the low-bandwidth constraints of a wireless-handheld network. Although WAP supports HTML and XML, the WML language (an XML application) is specifically devised for small screens and one-hand navigation without a keyboard. WML is scalable from two-line text displays up through graphic screens found on items such as smart phones and communicators. WAP also supports WMLScript. It is similar to JavaScript, but makes minimal demands on memory and CPU power because it does not contain many of the unnecessary functions found in other scripting languages. People use this when people play games over the online. People would also use this when buying games online for example steam and buying games on the phone on google play or iTunes. Cache Cache, which is pronounced "cash", stores recently used information so that it can be quickly accessed at a later time. Computers incorporate several different types of caching in order to run more efficiently, thereby improving performance. Common
- 6. types of caches include browser cache, disk cache, memory cache, and processor cache. This will normally only be used for games on pcs which gamers always use because most games will intall them on your computer autmaticly when downloading the game and sometimes it could crash the game if you delete the cache. MCP (Media Communications Processor) Force4 is the second evolution of the Media Communications Processor (MCP) and incorporates both Northbridge and Southbridge on a single die (the first was nForce3). The Socket 754 version of the board has the HyperTransport link clocked to 800 MHz (6.4 GB/s transfer rate). Motherboards based on early revisions are mostly referred to as "nForce4-4x" (relating with their ability to handle HT speeds of 4x). Support for up to 20 PCI Express (PCIe) lanes (up to 38-40 lanes for the nForce4 SLI x16). Reference boards are set up with one x16 slot and three x1 slots, leaving 1 lane unused. Support for up to 10 USB 2.0 ports. Support for 4 SATA and 4 PATA drives, which can be linked together in any combination of SATA and PATA to form a RAID 0, 1, or 0+1. In games this is used to play media stored on a external harddrive 2D v 3D graphics processing The term "2D," or two dimensional, is a term designers and others apply to objects that have only two of the following three spatial components: length, width, and depth. "2D" refers to things that exist on a single plane, including graphics, both printed and digital. By contrast, "3D" refers to objects with length, width and height. A gun in a gam e could be an example. Gaming has always used 2D and 3D graphics for about 20 years people only made games using 2D graphics, but now it is industry standard to make games in 3d graphics 2D
- 7. 3D Subscription TV In gaming this is used by consoles and pc this is a varied term because loads of different TV subscription. One of the most known ones is sky TV where you subscribe to get exclusive sport events. Netflix could also fall into this category, which is where you pay £5 and have access to thousands of tv and films. ETV (Enhanced Television) Enhanced Television (ETV) is a collection of specifications developed under the OpenCable project of CableLabs Things that ET is made from are PNG files JPEG images and PFR files This is used in gaming as companies release picture of there upcoming games which would usually be in a jpg file API (Graphical and Sound) API is an abbreviation of application program interface, is a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. The API specifies how software components should interact and are used when programming graphical user interface (GUI) components. A good API makes it easier for game developers to develop a program by providing all the building blocks. A programmer then puts the blocks together. Interpreted programming languages for games compiled into machine code. Compiled language programs, on the other hand, must explicitly be entirely translated ("compiled") into a sequence of machine language instructions before they can be executed. Interpreted languages can also be contrasted with machine languages. Functionally, both execution and interpretation mean the same thing — fetching the next instruction/statement from the program and executing it. Although interpreted bytecode is additionally identical to machine code in form and has an assembler representation, the term "interpreted" is practically reserved for "software processed" languages (by virtual machine or emulator) on top of the native (i.e. hardware) processor.
- 8. In principle programs in many languages may be compiled or interpreted, emulated or executed natively, so this designation is applied solely based on common implementation practice, rather than representing an essential property of a language. Akin to processor microcoding, many interpreters internally rely on just-in- time compilation. Avoiding compilation, interpreted programs are easier to evolve during both development and execution (where they can morph themselves). On the other hand, since compilation implies translation into more machine-friendly format, interpreted programs run slower and less efficiently (i.e. waste considerably more energy). This is especially true for higher-level scripting languages, whose statements are complex to analyze compared to machine instruction. Compiled programming languages for games Programs compiled into native code at compile time tend to be quicker than those translated at run time, due to the overhead of the translation process. New technologies such as Just-in-time compilation, and general improvements in the translation process are starting to narrow this gap, though. The mixed solution using bytecode tends to have efficiency somewhere in between. Low-level programming languages are typically compiled, especially when efficiency is the primary concern, rather than cross-platform support. For low level languages, there are more one-to-one correspondences between the programmed code and the hardware operations performed by machine code, making it easier for programmers to control CPU and memory usage in fine detail. With some effort it is always possible to write compilers even for traditionally interpreted languages. For example, Common lisp can be compiled to Java bytecode, which is interpreted by the Java Virtual Machine; C code, which is compiled to native machine code; or compiled directly to native code. Programming languages that support multiple compilation targets give greater control to the developer to choose either execution speed or cross-platform compatibility.Games are made on these programs so they are mainly only used by developers Object-oriented programming A type of programming in which programmers define not only the data type of a data structure, but also the types of operations (functions) that can be applied to the data structure. In this way, the data structure becomes an object that includes both data and functions. In addition, programmers can create relationships between one object and another. For example, objects can inherit characteristics from other objects. One of the principal advantages of object-oriented programming techniques over procedural programming techniques is that they enable programmers to create modules that do not need to be changed when a new type of object is added. A programmer can simply create a new object that inherits many of its features from existing objects. This makes object-oriented programs easier to modify. Scripting languages for games The most popular progaming language for games is c++.C++ (pronounced see plus plus) is a general purpose programming language that is free-form and compiled. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises both high-level and low- level language features. It provides imperative, object-oriented and generic programming features. C++ is one of the most popular programming languages and is implemented on a wide variety of hardware and operating system platforms. As an efficient performance driven programming language it is used in systems software, application software, device drivers, embedded software, high-performance server and client applications,
- 9. and entertainment software such as video games. Various entities provide both open source and proprietary C++ compiler software, including the FSF, LLVM, Microsoft and Intel. C++ has influenced many other programming languages, for example, C# and Java. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell Labs, C++ was originally named C with Classes, adding object-oriented features, such as classes, and other enhancements to the C programming language. The language was renamed C++ in 1983, as a pun involving the increment operator. It began as enhancements to C, first adding classes, then virtual functions, operator overloading, multiple inheritance, templates and exception handling, alongside changes to the type system and other features. C++ is standardised by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which the latest (and current) having being ratified and published by ISO in September 2011 as ISO/IEC 14882:2011 (informally known as C++11). The C++ programming language was initially standardised in 1998 as ISO/IEC 14882:1998, which was amended by the 2003 technical corrigendum, ISO/IEC 14882:2003. The current standard (C++11) supersedes these, with new features and an enlarged standard library.