Gaming Technology: Definitions

Gaming Technology: Definitions Games have been with humanity since the beginning. It is found that the different games that we play now are evolved from the games played in ancient days. Board game like Mancala was unearthed in the Sahara, Backgammon evolved from games such as Tabula and Nard talked about in ancient Roman scripts, and even in the Bible, Bicycle playing cards evolved form Tarot decks which was initially used to help predict the future. These games then turned into professional sports. Some of the games were even played for heavy money, some for competition and most of them were just for fun. With the introduction of computers, games entered a new era. The main reasons many people buying computers into their homes were games. Computer games became more popular and acceptable with introduction of best selling games such as Doom, Quake and Tomb Raider which had ultra-realistic 3D worlds. In late 90s and early 2000s, Multiplayer gaming became popular for playing games such as Ultima Online, Everquest, and Age of Empires 2. According Bidgoli (2004), by the end of 2003 over a billion people around the world will own a mobile phone and however in 2008 the number of mobile phone users worldwide soared to over 3.3 billion. With this statics games were available to be played in these devices. Mobile phones does not provide a rich and meaningful immersion on a tiny 100100 pixel screen (on average), theres one thing mobile phone benefits for playing games that they are always with you, and can be used anywhere you go. 3.2 TYPES OF MOBILE GAMES According to Fox and Verhosek (2002), the following incomplete list of mobile games genre can be produced. 1. Action games These types of games are usually played by adolescent males and involve fast reflexes. Moreover the graphics are as realistic as possible and the audio is usually rich and loud. Example of such action games include quake, missile command and pac man. 2. Combat games These types of games involve two characters playing against each other and trying to beat each other up. Example includes virtual fighter, street fighter and mortal kombat. 3. Adventure games These games require the player to discover the new worlds and play according to the plot of the game. Example includes zork, adventure island, Mario etc. 4. Puzzle games These kinds of games are usually played by audience of intelligence and cunning adults. The game requires players to use logic. Examples include tetris, Sudoku etc. 5. Strategy games These games also involve the player on thinking ahead and involves lots of pieces and possibilities. These games involve more tactics than long term strategy. Examples include warcraft, age of empire, empire earth etc. 6. Role playing games (RPG) These games are generally played by intelligent, male adolescents who read science fiction. The player has a role and the attributes changes over time and the degree of exploration. Examples include Diablo 3, Everquiest, Ultima online etc. 7. Trivia games These games are played to test the knowledge of the player. These are usually straightforward question-answer format. Examples include who wants to be a millionaire, quiz, buzzer etc 8. Word games These games involve the user to find out a word, based on some hints given. The more words the players know the better the player does. Examples include hangaroo, scrabble, hangman etc 9. Card games These games are played normally as the cards are played. The rules are the same as the rules in the physical cards game played. These may involve bluffing and betting. Examples include hearts, poker, spades, flush etc. 10. Games of chance These games are usually casino games where the game is based upon random result. Examples include roulette, slot machines etc. 11. Sports games These games involve games that we play as sports. Games such as football, basketball, hockey, cricket etc are the most famous sports 3.3 GAMING FEATURES AND TECHNOLOGIES SINGLEPLAYER Most mobile games are single player games where a user plays with an artificially intelligent opponent. The major success of single player games is interesting storylines, impressive graphics, and realistic non player characters and opponents. Some of the mobile games that run in single player mode are Tetris, Sudoku, and Fifa 09 etc. Most of these games can be played as multiplayer mode hence the user has a choice to make to play in single player mode or multiplayer mode. MULTIPLAYER A multiplayer game is a game which is played be several players. The players of a multiplayer game might be independent opponents, formed into teams or be just a single team. These kinds of games can be played in mobile phones as they are connected devices. Multiplayer functionality is achieved in mobile phones through connectivity such as: 1. Infrared connectivity 2. Bluetooth 3. GPRS 4. 3G 5. Wi-Fi 6. AI 7. MMS 8. Wireless LAN One of the main issues faced by multiplayer mobile games is latency. Most networks that exist now have latency at the minimum of 1-2 seconds, with averages more like 3-5 seconds. This stat hasnt stopped the developers on making multiplayer mobile games but teaches that the latency has to be considered with smart game design. These games include speedway and adrenalin which are both car racing games where players can play with other ghost cars. COMMU ITY Community games are a step further than the multiplayer games. In these types of games the players use their cell phones to access a community website where they can play games with many other players. The players may form a group or team and communicate with each other while playing the game. These games typically have limited graphical content and focuses on the interaction between a large number of participants. Monopoly world is one of the best known community mobile games where any player can play the game just for fun or wheel and deal real money. 3D GAMES While most of the consoles are taking the advantages of 3D technologies it is obvious that mobile can take advantage of the same rich environment. Hence a number of handsets having surprising capabilities can cope with this feature of new games. The mobile game developers can use java for 3D implementation since writing 3D is similar to writing 2D games. Java makes it easier with the introduction of M3G, the mobile 3D Graphics API. Some of the most popular 3D games that are available today are World Snooker 09 3D, 3D The Fast and The Furious etc. LOCATION BASED This kind of games uses localization technology like GPS. In most of the mobile games the games are played on mobile hardware where as in location based games the elements that matters is the location of the player and the coordinate and the movement of the player. The best example of location based mobile game is treasure hunt game called Geocaching. 3.4 LIMITATIONS OF MOBILE GAMES Mobile games are small in scope and often have many limitations. Some of the mobile games limitations listed by Marvin (2007) are as follows: Memory There are basic two types of constraints: the first covers the overall size of the application and the second is the memory space required in the memory for the application to run. Application Size Most of the mobile games are distributed to the end user by limiting the memory available. Some of the mobile phone games come on a memory card which limits the size of the application. There are many popular means of delivery such as installation Over-The-Air (OTA), where user selects a game to download on their mobile device from a list of mobile games. Even these games have limits (64 K or 128 K are typical) defined by the operators. Application Memory Space This is the memory space required when the application is running. More memory is required when the application is running than the actual application file this is due to the storage of objects at runtime, graphics storage etc. Processors Games are one among the mobile applications that uses most processor time. The calculations needed for the game takes a lot of processor cycles to perform the calculations. Mobile device manufacturers rarely state the processing power of the mobile chips but however they are much lower than those of a PC. Networking Mobile games use a spontaneous network rather than planned and are often used to fill spare moments resulting in short game sessions. These spontaneous are unreliable in cases the connectivity is lost or deliberately disconnected. For mobile devices even the network available has high latency which is the amount of time it takes to respond. The latency for a mobile network can be as high as few seconds which is too long for majority of fast action multiplayer games. TDMA: Time Division Multiple Access TDMA: Time Division Multiple Access TDMA stands for Time division multiple access. It is mainly a channel access method that is used for shared medium networks as well as a digital transmission technology that allows its users to access a single radio-frequency channels without any interference . and it allocates to its users unique time slots within each channel.TDMA is the widespread type of service that is used in North America.Mainly .TDMA is used in 2G cellular system(GSM,PDC,IDEN,IS-136,DECT) . In this case a single channel is divided into six time slots and each signal is using two time slots . To make the transmission possible each caller is assigned a specific time slot. TDMA offers high performance with respect to capacity, courage and mobility.TDMA mainly transmit data in a buffer-and-burst method and the transmission of any user is non- continuous. TDMA Frame Structure In TDMA frame structure a data stream divided into frames and those frames divided into time slots. and we explain the concept of TDMA frame structure with the help of an example:- In this case there is the TDMA frame shown which use seven set of frequencies that are sufficient to cover the large area that provides the maximum distance d that is larger than twice the maximum radius r , the radius that is being covered by each transmitter.and the length of each time slots that are generated from the frequency channels is 0.577ms and these 8 slots make a TDMA frame of length 4.615ms. There are main three burst present in the TDMA:- Normal Burst(NB) Frequency Correction Burst(FB) Synchronization Burst(SB) Access Burst(AB) Normal Burst:- The transmission of the data during the single time slot is known as a burst.and the guard time that is used to prevent the burst suffering from the overlapping is 8.25 bits. In the Normal Burst there are four types of bits as given below:- Tail Bits :- In the diagram of TDMA there is 3 bits at both of the two ends , in which there is no transmission of the data.At the beginning the the bit is used to rise up the power upto its peak during the transmission and the end it is used to down the power used at the end of the transmission. Data Bit:- Around the training bits there are two data bits each of 57 bits. Stealing Flags :- These are the flags around the training bits that are of length 1 bit and it is used to indicate that whether the burst is being used for voice or the data (set to 0)or whenever it is used for signalling (set to 1 ). Training Sequence :- In the training bits a method is being used to overcome the problem of multi-path fading and the other propagation effects .and in this 26 bits are used. Frequency Correction Burst:- FCB is mainly an unmodulated carrier which then after shift in frequency . The guard time used in the FCB is same as that of the normal bit . It is used for frequency synchronization of the mobile stations. Synchronization Burst:- The time synchronization of the mobile is possible with the help of synchronization burst .The payload used in this carries the FDMA frame number (FN) and Base Station Identity Code (BSIC). and the broadcasting in this case is with the frequency correction burst.and also broadcasting occurs on the synchronization channel. Access Burst:- Firstly the guard burst used in this very longer as compared to the normal burst , so it is 68.25bits . The mobile stations use this type of the burst for random access. It also helps to measure the unknown distance of any mobile station from the tower , when the MS wants to access to the new BTS. Features of TDMA In case of TDMA a single carrier frequency is shared among several users. and each user use the time slots. The time slots used by the users depends on several factors such as modulation techniques and the available bandwidth. Data Transmission in the case of the users of TDMA is not continuous but it occurs in bursts which results in low use of the battery consumption because the subscriber is turned off , when it is not in the use. The Handoff process is much simpler in the case of TDMA because of its discontinuity and it is able to listen to the other base stations during its idle slot time. The Transmission rates are very high in the case of TDMA as compared to the FDMA because of the Adaptive Equalization which is necessary in the case of TDMA. The guard time present in the case of TDMA should be minimum. The main advantage of TDMA is that it is very cost-effective technology which is used for upgrading a current analog system to digital. In this the battery used is of extended life and the talk time , since the mobile is only transmitting the portion of the time of the time during conversations. TDMA technology is used to separate users in time and ensure that there will not be any interference which is presented from any other simultaneous transmissions. Disadvantages of TDMA The main disadvantages of TDMA are given as below:- The main disadvantage of the TDMA is that each user that is used in the TDMA has a predefined time slot that is defined by the system and if the users roaming from one cell to another cell or from one place to any other place and are not alloted a time slot or if all the time slot available for the user are already occupied , then the user will not receive any call. The another main disadvantage of TDMA systems is interference that is created by it at a frequency which is directly connected to the time slot length.In this case or problem with the TDMA is the multiple distortion , so whenever the signal coming from one place or tower to another tower, then there are many buildings that create problem in the signal for arriving at the destination because of the interference. Efficient time schedule that is possible in the case of TDMA but it is not always easy to find it. Clock synchronization needed. Whenever there is the case of dynamic status changes of nodes on the scheduling is also handled by it. The channel utilization in the case of TDMA is very low as compared to CSMA during low contention. TDMA in Mobile Phone Systems 2G Systems:- Many 2G Systems are based on the TDMA.So we can say the TDMA as TDMA cellular systems which include the main examples of the TDMA cellular systems are GSM, IS-95, D-AMPS, PDC,iDEN and PHS. As in the case of GSM it combines the TDMA with frequency hopping and the wideband transmission , so as to minimize the interference .So in the case of GSM system,base station send the timing commands which is then helpful in the synchronization of the mobile phones which are helpful in easier transmission and decide the time .There is the guard interval in the case of GSM.There is the RACH in GSM. Whenever the mobile is in the next base ststion , then the call arrived sucessfully without any delay.and if the mobile is located beyond the 35 km range in GSM, then the RACH used in this will arrive in the time slot that is in the neighboring.So there is no special technique to limit the range of the GSM cell to 35 km .So to overcome this problem , the synchronization is changed between th e uplink and downlink in the base station. 3G Systems:- 3G system use the combination of both CDMA and TDMA . So it take the advantage of both the techniques.The most popular 3G systems are UMTS which use CDMA rather then TDMA, and in TD-CDMA and TD-SCDMA , the TDMA is combined with CDMA and TDD. Comparison Between GSM,TDMA and CDMA TDMA Firstly we all know that the TDMA become a technology of the past.In the case of TDMA the data is compressed in to packets within its same bandwidth.Some important things about the TDMA are given as below:- It act as a bridge between the analog and the digital technologies which led to the development of the GSM and iDEN. iDEN:- It is a Integrated Digital Enhanced Network and it is similar to as that of the GSM technology and it is operating at 800 MHz,1900MHz and 1.5 GHz in the US. It is used to handle the CDMA and GSM technology.It can handle three users per channel and for the purpose of more capacity and demand , it is require the use of more towers which is costly. The Data capacity in the case of TDMA is is around the 56 kbps. GSM GSM stands for Global System for Mobile Communication uses a narrow band modification of TDMA. GSM can handle up to eight users per channel. GSM mainly operates on 1900MHz. GSM is incapable of the reliable data speeds which requires the alternate technologies. GSM is more widespread around the world CDMA CDMA stand s for Code Division Multiple Access which is a technology that sent as a constant flow across larger bandwidth instead of sending a signal into packets and sent on cycles, CDMA transmissions. CDMA can handle ten users per channel, but it require more frequency to provide service. In the US, CDMA uses the standard 800MHz and 1900MHz. The data capacity in the CDMA,is fastest, which is equal to the 144 kbps. Should GMO Crops be Banned? Should GMO Crops be Banned? Genetically Modified Organism (GMOs) are works or creature that have their DNA test consolidated with DNA from the germ, infections, or different plants and creatures keeping in mind the remainder goal too. GMOs are initially used to upgrade general change to dietary substance. The GMO crop has raised worries over their own advantageous in that they are impervious to illnesses, produces more prominent yields, and it enhances the sustenance of nourishments devising the general population ignorant about their holding. Each time we go to any supermarkets or grocery stores, we would not know whether the vegetables and natural products are genetically modified. GMO crops should not be banned as GM substances can be extremely nourishing and can have a much bigger yield than un-adjusted harvests. This is especially helpful in spots like Africa where there isnt great soil to develop the important products to manage themselves. GM nourishments can also withstand colder climates and droughts. Their development time is additionally less in GM subsistence. Developing countries can also sell the crops produced in order to help them in financial trouble. Hereditarily altered nourishments are gainful to nature, well-being, and are more solid than typical plants. By designing the BT poison in the genomes of plants, researchers have diminished the requirement for pesticides. The BT poison is just dangerous to the creepy crawlies that eat it. Likewise, its innocuous to people. This is superior to utilizing customary pesticides since its objective particular, and it influences the bugs that eat underlying foundations of plants and in addition those that tunnel in the plant tissues. Those bugs were beforehand unaffected in light of the fact that pesticides are connected to the plant remotely. Then again, numerous individuals trust that genetically altered sustenance is hurtful to the body. Hereditarily adjusted item is the after-effect of a long biochemical research and item improvement. In spite of the fact that researchers are creating organic chemistry for the lessening of destructive things in the item, regardless, this item conveys a hazardous substance for the body. These unsafe substances consequently prompt to various gastric infections and issues with the skin. This nourishment can likewise prompt to genuine infringement of the bodys digestion system, which prompts to a standout amongst the most unsafe issues of humankind weight. As indicated by measurement of an American researcher, many individuals have stoutness, as a result of eating GM nourishment. In addition, due to the truth that GM merchandise can reason serious fitness troubles people have commenced searching for new methods to replace such dangerous food. A main UN/World Bank-sponsored file compiled with the aid of 400 scientists and endorsed through 58 international locations concluded that GM crops have little to provide world agriculture and the challenges of poverty, hunger, and climate change because better selections are available. In particular, the record championed agro-ecological farming as the sustainable way forward for creating countries. This is one of the ways, which ought to be realized in many countries, according to researchers at Michigan University. Also, agriculture region is working to enhance new methods of farming, which can replace GM food. As I would see it, I think GMO products should be banned as the young era of individuals will have distinctive infections of eating these GMO sustenances. Clearly, these days developing GMO crops has turned into a colossal industry that it cant be stopped however, I accept there are different approaches to spare individuals from hunger. Sources: http://www.mapsofworld.com/infographics/poll/should-genetically-modified-foods-be-banned-text.html http://www.eatingwell.com/food_news_origins/food_news/should_the_us_ban_genetically_modified_organisms_gmos https://www.loc.gov/law/help/restrictions-on-gmos/usa.php http://www.geneticallymodifiedfoods.co.uk/fact-sheet-pros-vs-cons.html http://healthresearchfunding.org/pros-cons-genetically-modified-foods/ https://laurenmarieee.wordpress.com/2015/04/17/persuasive-essay/ http://www.fouryearsincollege.com/sample-essay-genetically-modified-foods-good-or-bad http://www.shareyouressays.com/104888/short-essay-on-genetically-modified-crop