Cube - A Game About Google Maps | Hacker News Reader

Cube - A Game About Google Maps

playmapscube.com

111 pointsuptown36 comments

This really shows me how far removed are interactive experiences in a browser as opposed to running natively in an operating system.

Nothing about this game should tax the resources of a mid-level computer from the late 1990s, yet when running inside of a browser, you'd think you were asking your computer to run Crysis at maximum resolution.

Running this in Chrome on Linux on a four year old PC - This ran very smoothly and always stayed below 20% CPU.

Not to disagree with your fundamental point -- JavaScript and WebGL has a ways to go yet -- but what computer are you thinking of? 1999 was the year of Quake III, Unreal Tournament, and Half-Life, which looked like this[0] with fully-baked maps. This game smoothly renders thousands of dynamic polys with shading and stencil shadows, not to mention anti-aliased typography, at 1440x900 with about 30% CPU on my MBA. It's a little more impressive than you make it sound.

[0] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/89/Quake_III_Aren... http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dc/Unreal_tournam... http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8e/SurfaceTension...

I don't know what you're using, but I'm using a base model macbook air and the cpu barely took a hit. Very smooth rendering.

I'm on a mid 2010 Macbook Pro using Chrome 20 (dev) and it runs perfectly smooth with no lag and no noticeable spike in CPU usage.

This being the top comment, I'm assuming it got upvoted the most, but nobody chimed in verbal agreement.

I'm posting from a 2007 Compaq 8510p with Windows XP, and having the browser bog down as if I've been hacked has been the sharpest reminder of late I need to upgrade.

Runs ok, on MacBook Pro bought January 2008 (4GB, 17inch). But the fan started running, which is rare (Safari OSX 10.7)

My box is very recent but low price, and the game was running smoothly using 5% of the CPU... maybe you're not properly using hardware accelaration?

This is fantastic work. I'm genuinely impressed every day when I come to HN with all of the fantastic work that is being produced and very humbled at the same time (realising my own limits!).

What we can do in a web-browser now, and the ability of excellent engineers such as these guys to implement these is astonishing.

It's odd, it appears to think that my Linux Chrome isn't Chrome at all. It tells me to upgrade.

While on my Mac Chrome it doesn't show anything, the map is just black. Or is that the game? I'm not sure.

It works for me in Mac Chrome. (Version 18.0.1025.165) Basically it is a cube with a map that has 3D buildings on all six sides.

I can see the cube with 3D buildings, but cannot interact with it in any way. Mac Chrome 18.0.1025.165

I get this also.

Check chrome://gpu-internals/

I am using Chrome 18.0.1025.165 (Official Build 132849) on Mac and it works very well.

I have 18.0.1025.165 too, and according to that page, everything is hardware accelerated. Though I have Intel GMA 950 from the long forgotten times of 2007, so that might be it.

That could be, it works on both my ATI 4850 iMac and Nvidia MacBook Air.

Tried two Macs in my house. Neither work in Chrome. Both had black maps and their fans are still running.

Same issue. Canary on a 2008 MacBook.

Oddly, when I zoom in twice, the game is visible. It's not usable, but it's there!

works well in firefox linux

Seems to be related to the WebGL support.

Here Chromium 17.0.963.79 doesn't work, but Firefox 12.0 works (actually, I think it's the first time ever a fancy WebGL thing works here).

It's not playable though. I guess my graphic card (or the driver) doesn't have the proper acceleration.

it probably does but if you are running a stable version of Chrome so your gpu might be blacklisted (I think some gpus aren't entirely stable enough for the stable version of Chrome) Run Chrome with the --ignore-gpu-blacklist flag and it should work. (you might also have to turn on webgl in the about:flags settings page - also maybe NaCL in about:flags and about:plugins)

This solves it for me, and I believe it also will for others. Everytime I wanna see something in WebGL I have to open a new Chrome window using --ignore-gpu-blacklist and then it works. This was the same.

You can disable the compatibility check in about:flags. Works fine here.

Me too. In about:gpu it clearly says I have hardware acceleration for WebGL, and I have FGLRX... this is odd.

Failed for me too. Windows 8, Chrome 18.0.1025.162, chrome://gpu reports that I have hardware acceleration in everything.

Reminds me of Marble Madness.

That's pretty much what I thought. I just wonder what the marble madness developers might think of seeing this. what would they have said to using maps of the real world with live traffic streamed in to the game to roll your marble around?

MM was only 28 years ago. We've come many lifetimes since then :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_Madness

Tells me to use Chrome. I'm using Chrome on a Mac. Tried Firefox, and it also didn't work.

works in safari

also works in firefox 13.0a2 on windows

A great ad for the finer points of google maps

Never finishes loading in Opera 12.

It does for me: Opera 12.00 alpha, build 3278, Windows 7. What's your setup?

Try Netscape Navigator.

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