Man, that's the truth. Only character I get murdered with against I-No, purely because she's too fast to position properly. Not the fastest character ever, but certainly fastest walking speed in a fighting game.
I was going to mention Knuckles' Chaotix, which doesn't appear to HAVE a top speed, but that would also go against the rules of nomination stated earlier. :/
It took me two days to realize that 'progamers' was meant to be parsed as 'pro-gamers' and not 'programmers'. I'm not sure why my mind kept tossing in the extra R.
Also, just because some bugs are being fixed doesn't mean that there won't be new ones to exploit. The tournament crowd had to adapt to each new version of Street Fighter as they came about, but it never put a nail in the coffin of the franchise, did it? Not that I really like Smash Bros as a tourney game, since someone's always going to whine about stages/characters/rules instead of just playing the damned thing. HYRULE CASTLE! POKEBALLS! JIGGLYPUFF ONLY! :p
Getting back to the maximum 'value' of 16.7 million, it is generally accepted that the average human eye tends to not discern colors of a much larger variety than this particular number. This is part of why nobody really made it a point to evolve beyond 24-bit color.
That's not true. 24-bit coloring is not enough to cover the entire range of colors which the human eye can discern. For example, only 256 shades of gray can be represented with such an image, and the average person can perfectly distinguish the border between two large areas of gray which differ by only one value (in each color component, to get the next representable shade of gray).
The reason why most images use 8 bits per color channel is simply because 8 bits is the most convenient amount of data, and 256 shades of each color component is usually enough for acceptable quality.
If you look at my wording, though, I'm in agreement with you. Indeed, a mere 256 tones of grey does not sufficiently cover the range of human eyesight. This is why I chose the words 'much larger' than 16.7 million, which would indicate that human eyes can indeed view a discernable difference between more than 16.7 million colors, albeit perhaps not a significantly higher number.
Valid point on 32-bit depth, though.
Okay, first, you need to understand the concept of additive color.
In light, which is emitted by your monitor, all colors are created by the intensity of three base colors: Red, Green, and Blue.
A bit is a binary digit, 0 or 1.
A byte is eight bits long, containing a value between 00 and FF (or 0 and 255 in base-ten).
In 24-bit color, each individual pixel is drawn with 24 bits of data that define the color. 24 bits = 3 bytes. Each byte defines the luminosity of red, green, and blue.
FF0000 = Red.
00FF00 = Green.
0000FF = Blue.
000000 = black, the absense of all color.
FFFFFF = white, the presence of all color.
...
Now, 32-bit color is, in actuality, 24-bit color with an additional byte of data to represent opacity.
...
Getting back to the maximum 'value' of 16.7 million, it is generally accepted that the average human eye tends to not discern colors of a much larger variety than this particular number. This is part of why nobody really made it a point to evolve beyond 24-bit color.
The only significance that 16.7 million has is that it's the base-ten equivalent of FFFFFF, which is 3 bytes long, and the cleanest way to define a pixel in additive color, without going for extreme overkill.
X-bit color just tells you how many bits of data are used per pixel to draw an image.
Because Windows XP is miserable at managing resources, I can't take a screenshot right now. I find this absurd, given that it has 2GB of RAM to work with, and it's only using 600 MB at the moment.
In lieu of a desktop screenshot, here's my current wallpaper. Just be warned that it's a huge dual-monitor spread. Not that wallpaper matters much to me, since this is usually all I see at any given time.
Oh, and as for my laptop: Classic Calvin & Hobbes.
I actually haven't enjoyed a first-person shooter since Turok 2 for N64. For the most part, I blame this on control issues; Turok 2 and its predecessor brought me up on left hand look, right hand walk/strafe, which no other shooter since has implemented properly. I bought Halo on hype alone, and hated it on account of the southpaw control setup being so terrible - contorting my right hand to be able to walk and jump at the same time was inexcusable.
Beyond that, the Metroid Prime series is all I can get into. Prime 3 plays like a dream, even if the camera lens effect is irritating.
If I recall correctly (I haven't played the GBA version in a couple years), it only tells you how many times you've died or restarted from a saved game, not how much damage (if any) you've taken. I could tell you for sure, but I have no idea where my GBA carts went when I moved into this apartment.
Favorite levels to play:This is based on games that I start up just to play these levels/courses, oftentimes repeatedly. Listed alphabetically.
Daytona USA: Seaside Street Galaxy
F-Zero GX: Greenplant [Spiral] (honorable mention to Big Blue [Ordeal] and all of the Aeropolis courses, really)
Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess: Ice Dungeon
Sonic 2: Chemical Plant
Sonic Adventure: Speed Highway as Sonic
Sonic Adventure 2: White Jungle
Super Mario Bros: All of World 3
Super Mario Bros 3: First half of World 5, but particularly the temple to the sky.
Favorite area design:
Chrono Trigger: The End of Time (I'd love to go sit under that lamp and read)
Final Fantasy VI: Narshe (always loved the lighting, the contrast between the moonlit snow and golden glow of the lights within the buildings)
Final Fantasy VII: Midgar (sad, but true)
Skies of Arcadia: Valua (oh, how I wish more of it was explorable)
