Terminology

AI

Airtificial Intelligence is the intelligence of Characters apart from those who are controlled by Gamers. This is a dedicated programming line where there are many types of applications. In Gaming, there are two types widely used. The first type is the Scripted AI which is easy to program and does gives an intelligence to a Game Character based on pre-scripted actions or events. The character’s intelligence depends on events and actions of the Game and Player. This is somewhat known as low level (if badly scripted) and medium level (if good scripted). But, the high level of AI comes from very difficult programming. Now a days, modern Graphics Engines supports realistic environments and physics to control. So, in this type of AI, instead of scripting the character’s intelligence, the programmers will script the characteristics of the character that changes according to environements and physics. This is considered as unscripted AI and does an excellent job when you play with it. Only modern games like Crysis and Call of Duty supports some level of unscripted AI. We’re yet to see a powerful unscripted AI where the character is acting on all by their own in the Game according to real life situations and events.

DirectX

DirectX is a Graphics Engine (see my Terminology below). This is developed by Microsoft and comes preinstalled with all Windows versions. This is the most popular choice of Game Programmers for all kinds of Games. Before Windows Vista was released, DirectX 8 and 9 versions that came with Windows 98 and XP were the most famous and powerful Graphics Engines. However, Windows Vista changed that by releasing an advanced DirectX 10 version that supported real time physics, shaders and much more lighting effects. Few Games were designed for DirectX 10 as of now since it’s a new technology and many Gamers may not be having Windows Vista machine. But latest Graphics Cards (see my Terminology below) supports DirectX 10 and provides backwards compatibility with DirectX 9 in case you want to play those Games too. The famous DirectX 10 Games as on writing this is Crysis, Halo, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Assassin’s Creed.

DPI

Dots Per Inch is a scaling mechanism used to scale the depth of pixels (see my Terminology below) on a display. This directly means the number of pixels available in a square inch space on the display. The larger this count is, the sharper and crispier is the display. DPI also changes as per the size of display and resolution (see my Terminology below) that is supported by the display.

First Person Shooters

First Person Shooters (FPS – Don’t confuse with the other FPS below) is, in my opinion, the most famous Game Play. Game Play in Games are classified by the angle of the visual on to which the player can play the Game. The angle of FPS games will be from the point of player’s eyes. You can see everything in the Game but you can’t see yourself except for your hands that holds and fires Guns or your shadow. Some FPS games allows in-game footage where you can see your full self while you’re doing some stuff (e.g.: In Project IGI 1 & 2 whenever you try to crack and open gates or upload virus or disable security alarms by the help of a computer, you can see the visual footage). However, the major play is by your own eyes and gives you the real impression that you’re actually part of the Game and not an outsider sitting and controling others. See the below screenshots to know how FPS game angle and the in-game footage will be:

FPS

Frames Per Second is the performance and quality measure of any footage. Movies are basically individual frames which were changed faster to show smooth motion. If you are a cartoon fan, you can understand this easily. Cartoons are drawn in multiple frames and shown in a fast motion to look animated (as Cartoons are basically drawn manually, the number of FPS available is very less and thus the different slidy motion that’s only available in Cartoons). FPS is a measure of the number of frames shown in a second. The more the FPS, the faster and smoother will be the Game Play and higher be the quality. However, when talking about videos, this is not the case. There are limitations on the maximum FPS in a video that can be shown in TV or Movies (Theatre Movies). In first generation movies (Black & White without Voice), the FPS was restricted to 16 while second generation movies (Eastmen Color or Black & White with Voice) restricted to 24 and now modern movies supports up to 30 for high quality. However, TV has different restriction based on areas. For example a PAL Channel can only show up to 25 fps while NTSC can show up to 30 fps. So, when you capture videos of Games that you’re wishing to target any of these platforms, you should consider the FPS count. Games however, supports incredible amounts of FPS varying from 60 fps to 3000 or more fps (high end Graphics Cards and SLI or Quadro Modes).

Game Map

Gaming Engine

Graphics Cards

Graphics Engine

KBPS

MMORPG

Nintendo

NTSC

OpenGL

PAL

PC

Pixels

PlayStation

Resolution

RPG

Third Person Shooters

Wii

XBOX