Vector Games Math Processors (Wordware Game Math Library) [Paperback]

James Leiterman (Author)

Book Description

Series: Wordware Game Math Library | Publication Date: November 25, 2002

Due to the advancement of video games and game console hardware, the super computer is now a home consumer appliance. Vector Game Math Processors explains to programmers how to write parallel-based integer and floating point based math algorithms for use in video games as well as scientific applications. Every manufacturer uses their own terms such as SIMD, Packed Data, Parallel Data, Semi-Vector, and Vector but they are all different labels for the methodology for programming multiple sets of data with the same computer instruction at the same time. Programmers have been publicly declaring these newer processors more complex and harder to program. The primary goal of this book is to explain the differences in these processors. This is an advanced title appropriate for experienced game and graphics programmers and is part of the Wordware Game Developer's Library.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

James Leiterman is a senior computer engineer who has been developing hardware and software professionally since 1978 and programming video/computer games for 17 years. He has worked for several game companies including LucasArts, Atari, a casino gaming company, and two Internet online game companies, shipping nine computer games. He lives in Los Angeles, California

Product Details

• Paperback: 507 pages
• Publisher: Wordware Publishing, Inc. (November 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556229216
• ISBN-13: 978-1556229213
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,384,385 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, December 21, 2004

By 

Ingeborg Martinsson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vector Games Math Processors (Wordware Game Math Library) (Paperback)

This book is for professionals and intermediate programmers interested in optimizing 3D vector calculations of their code. So this book gives you a clue what and how to do. I think a really professional book from a professional. It gives you a nice start to build fast code for vector and matrix calculations.
Maybe faster then the DirectX implementations. ;-)

Some important notes about the book:

1. nice explanations and figures
2. no nonsense code or listnings
3. all working code and compiled binaries
4. 4 platforms supported - so if you are coding a proggy in OpenGl for Mac and Windows. It will compile with a appropriate compiler.
5. no stupid or extrordinary woodoo assembler code - understandable code!
6. many instruction sets are explained and implemented like MMX, 3DNow, SSE and so on

A great buy. Satisfaction is guaranteed.

Martin
Berlin

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Unreadable, April 19, 2006

By 

J Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vector Games Math Processors (Wordware Game Math Library) (Paperback)

The author seems knowledgeable in the area he covers, but, unfortunately, can't write: there isn't one clear paragraph in the whole book, not one coherent chapter -- this book reads like a transcript of a mental patient's ranting: disjointed and random, ungrammatical, having no logical structure, no direction; with concepts used w/o being defined before (or after!); wrong words used all the time (or, alternatively, missing a word now and then) -- all in all, a sizeable load of gibberish that's torture to parse and impossible to understand. Even vector math itself is not defined!

The author, if he must write at all, should team up with a competent technical writer, maybe as a coauthor, especially since the publisher, Wordware (based on my observations, a second-rate outfit in general) doesn't seem keen on providing adequate editorial contribution