You say the technology has unlimited power?
Umm, yes, yes we do.
We have a search algorithm [which] grabs one atom for every pixel on the screen. So if you do it that way, you end up being able to have unlimited geometry.[/quote]When he says "search algorithm", he's obviously referring to their spatial acceleration structure, such as an SVO.
What he's implying here, is that their data structure has a computational complexity of [font="Courier New"]O(P)[/font], where [font="Courier New"]P[/font] is the number of pixels rendered.
So, if you're rendering a single pixel, that's a structure with complexity of [font="Courier New"]O(1)[/font]. Not [font="Courier New"]O(N)[/font] (where [font="Courier New"]N[/font] is the amount of geometry), or [font="Courier New"]O(K.N)[/font], or [font="Courier New"]O(log(N))[/font], or [font="Courier New"]O(sqrt(N))[/font], no... [font="Courier New"]O(1)[/font].

They've got an acceleration data-structure where the search time is unrelated to the amount of data being searched, whatsoever. A search within 10KB of data is the exact same complexity as a search within 10PB of data.

They've apparently proved that there is such a thing as a free lunch, which isn't just a revolution for computer graphics, but for computer science in general. Google should be buying his company and patenting this discovery. Seriously, it's that much of a big deal.

People were claiming that you must have some sort of memory limitations?
Umm. No. The simple answer is: no. Our memory compaction is going remarkably well.[/quote]So not only do they have [font="Courier New"]O(1)[/font] search on unlimited data, they've also got infinite compression ratios on unlimited data.
There are no memory limitations at all; they'll just compress infinity into finite space.

And he wonders why people are having a bad reaction to his presentation? He wonders why he's being called a liar when he's saying things that can't be true?

The video JPEG'ed the poor thing.
We know what LOD'ing is; level of distance.
Most people don't really know what tesselation is ... it means the polygons .... have information about how high they are, [which] is used to break them up into little polygons and create bumps. Tesselation bumpy map.
...if you want to put it on a Game Boy DS or something like that, you've got to rebuild all the graphics.
Hello my name is John, I do *raises eyebrows* data compaction. I take *raises eyebrows* atoms, and I smash them *raises eyebrows* with a sledgehammer, until they submit to me.[/quote]W.T.F.


He goes on a lot about how great it is to import graphics from the real world -- but this is a red herring. He mentions their elephant a lot, how it was scanned into a 500k poly model, and then converted the polygonal model to 'atoms' for rendering... which means the scanning stuff is in no way related to their rendering tech - it's just as applicable to polygon renderers.

He also completely misinterprets Carmack and Notch's objections, and creates a false dichotomy between their statements. That was just painful to watch.

I don't see why you find this hard to believe. I mean they said it themselves using the CPU they only get 15-25 FPS.

I believe Carmack's reasoning is probably because they have people at ID doing SVO research. If he thought Euclideon was using an SVO renderer then he had reason to make the claims he did. The fact is it's probably not an SVO renderer so Carmack's assumption regarding his own technology is probably off-target.[/quote]Carmack said it wouldn't be ready for a game for a few years.
If it's running at 15FPS, then it's not ready for a game. If it's using 100% of the CPU for rendering, then it's not ready for a game. Carmack was simply saying it will take them a few years to fix those issues, which is probably true.
However, Dell interpreted this observation of facts as if Carmack was saying that it's impossible to make a game with their tech...

There's no way to know if their acceleration structure is a SVO or not, but he does say that they're using voxels... while also admitting he has no idea what a voxel is.

As for notch, he's right to call Dell a 'snake oil salesman', even if his product is real. As above, he's making claims that contradict computer science (e.g. ?:1), and making many other correct-but-misleading claims, which very fairly makes it snake-oil - a "product with exaggerated marketing but unverifiable quality or benefit".

In the video, Dell interpret's Notches view as one of "it's not special, everyone is doing it", and then dismisses this view by comparing it with Carmack's *supposed* view that "it's impossible". He also dismissed atomontage by saying it always demonstrates small, constrained scenes (which btw, contain unique and modifiable data instead of instanced data), and at the same time reveals that UD doesn't support real-time destruction/modification of the scene.

If he were honest about it's strengths/weaknesses, didn't try to confuse the issue by merging unrelated ideas with his tech, and honestly assessed competing approaches, they'd be fine. If he did all that, and also didn't speak like a condescending douche, and actually described his approach using real terminology, he'd be someone to look up to and respect.
But as is, he's just a snake oil salesman.

Looking on LinkedIn, they do actually employ at least 3 real games programmers (people with backgrounds in the industry) and a professional director (the kind of guy that directs 3 companies at once and has a work history of senior management roles) on their pay-roll, so they are acting like a real company trying to commercialize a real product. ...but that doesn't change the fact that he's currently made their real product into snake oil.