Course and Lib Stats

[tincup]

I thought it might be interesting to look at a break down of course and library growth over the years and correlate that with the A-List of courses (hope it is readable enough).

You can see that in 1999 there were only 26 libs available... I assume mostly stock. That year, 43 designers produced 82 courses and only 2 of those are on my A-List.

In the peak course year 2001, the number of libs had grown to 384, about 52% of what we have today. That year, 134 designers produced 318 courses and 16% of those show up on the A-List... better, but still fairly low.

The inflection point year for quality improvement seems to be 2006. Over 90% (662) of current libraries were available then. That year, 40 designers produced 76 courses and half of those made it to the A-List.

The number of active designers has declined almost every year, as has the number of courses. However, the smaller number of courses today are mostly all good ones. In 2010, 21 of 24 new courses were A-listers.

I can think of a couple reasons for this:
1. There more and probably more sophisticated libraries now to work with.
2. The designers who are still producing courses are the hard core, experienced designers.

FWIW
Dar

Year …. Libs …. total …. % of total …. Designers …. # Courses …. A-List …. % A-List
1999 …. 26 …. 26 …. 3.5% …. 43 …. 82 …. 2 …. 2.4%
2000 …. 130 …. 156 …. 21.2% …. 103 …. 214 …. 19 …. 8.9%
2001 …. 228 …. 384 …. 52.2% …. 134 …. 318 …. 51 …. 16.0%
2002 …. 121 …. 505 …. 68.7% …. 122 …. 287 …. 59 …. 20.6%
2003 …. 45 …. 550 …. 74.8% …. 85 …. 188 …. 60 …. 31.9%
2004 …. 32 …. 582 …. 79.2% …. 57 …. 159 …. 47 …. 29.6%
2005 …. 37 …. 619 …. 84.2% …. 61 …. 140 …. 42 …. 30.0%
2006 …. 43 …. 662 …. 90.1% …. 40 …. 76 …. 38 …. 50.0%
2007 …. 13 …. 675 …. 91.8% …. 23 …. 42 …. 26 …. 61.9%
2008 …. 25 …. 700 …. 95.2% …. 22 …. 47 …. 28 …. 59.6%
2009 …. 18 …. 718 …. 97.7% …. 15 …. 26 …. 19 …. 73.1%
2010 …. 15 …. 733 …. 99.7% …. 13 …. 24 …. 21 …. 87.5%
2011 …. 2 …. 735 …. 100.0% …. 9 …. 12 …. 8 …. 66.7%
Totals …. 735 …. …. …. …. 1615 …. 420 …. 26.0%

[Indy Anna Jones]

Another issue relating to quality of course vis 1999-2002 and 1996-today, besides the number of libraries available, is the upgrade in the quality of computers, available memory, and cable transfer. I can easily recall getting around 400,000 points on our old HP and praying nothing would happen to the course design between then and finishing it. (IIRC the PGA designer warns you around 350K points that you need to optimize your course. Today it's not unusual to see 700K+ points; I think Terry said there were over 1M points on his Links of Rugged Dunes course. A 25Meg plus course download is no big deal today either, compared to say dl'ing a 10Meg course overnight 10 years ago on dialup.

But oh how we rushed to get the newest release asap! Nor was it unusual to see 20-30 reviews/comments on every course.

[SteveHorn]

Your right Judy! I use to have alot of trouble with my computer if I got much over 300,000 points. I'm still using the same computer but I can get well over 500,000 or even 600,000 points now because I now know what processes I can delete and what other garbage I can get rid of when I work with the Architect. Also I got the virtual memory set correctly.

[Terry Grayson]

Yeah I can remember when I first started playing there were a bunch of us on dialup and it was tough to download a course. I would start it and let it run for HOURS!!! lol

I think my latest (Is it sad I forgot the name) the one I just uploaded recently had almost 2 million points or maybe a tad over.... I have never not one time had an issue or points causing crashing. I think it may be the way I lay down the buffer textures around the area I am working on and optimize within it as high as I can go without losing too much detail
It may not be the case, but Heck I am still using the computer I bought like in 2000 and never had a problem with that....

Im just proud the game has lasted this long with folks around here that refuse to let it die....

[Stan Nehilla]

Terry,

Links Course at Hatteras Isle, you senile old thing.

[SteveHorn]

Terry! WOW 2,000,000 points with a 10 year old computer. How many gigs is it. Mine is only 40. I remember when that used to be a decent size. Now 250 to 500 gigs is normal.

[Indy Anna Jones]

Yes Terry and many many thanks for explaining your technique. We started using it maybe 5 years ago, and in that time (along with our save! save! save! philosophy) we've never had a major disaster and have turned out (IMO) much better courses. No way LeGolf or Arcadia Bluffs could have been done without it.

[Terry Grayson]

Steve

I bought it from Best buy back then. It is a vpr matrix and at that time it was the STUFF lol! It had 100 g hard drive (since replaced with a 500 g) 512 mb memory (I upgraded to 1 gig) and a jaw droppin 64 mb Nividia graphics card that I have upgraded twice... Poor thing sometimes when restarting will not boot (Because power supply is about shot) but it is still running along smooth (when I dont in fact restart it) It has been struck by lightning twice, I had to replace a few parts from that, but the darn thing has been so good to me, I just can not get rid of it and buy a high end one... I use it mainly now for internet and creating things for our gospel quartet. I have a 500 gig external drive that has almost 200 g of just videos of our singings and such...

Maybe one day Ill put her down, I just dont have the heart right now

Indy: That trick really does work huh? Im like you I do that every single time and I will save save save and save copies on the desktop, on my documents, and on an external hard drive JUST IN CASE.... Im a computer pack rat, keep everything, I think if I looked I still have most if not all of the architect files of courses I have built over the years... I just save everything...

[Terry Grayson]

PS Thanks Stan, I couldnt believe I couldnt remember name of it without looking, and I was just too lazy to look it up! Ha ha ha....

Ill be FORTY next month, so I attribute it to getting old! lol

[bryce]

Lordy Lordy, Terry's 40!!!!