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gmat · 02-20-2006, 09:06 AM

FEA is another example CPU hog, and there's never enough power for it - the day you multiply by 10x the power of your mainframe, the next day your engineering team finds a way to put it down to its knees. The race to mainframe power is still on and raging thanks to the Japanese (NEC & Fujitsu leading the charge) who are putting a heavy pressure on US labs and IBM. The goal is more power in a smaller space. With time the technologies developped for mainframes trickle down to consumer level (look at AMD64 platform architecture..) so i'd say we're not near the end of the race.
About physics engines they're now able to simulate full newtonian physics (in a limited reference frame though, but enough for games), they're now at such a point that whole companies are specialized in programming and licencing them (heard of Havok ?). For todays games i think they *all* licence a 3rd party physics engine, it's just logical (and saves man-years of work). Still those engines are highly tuned down to suit just the needs of the game, and not hog all the CPU cycles.
There's also this Ageia thing, although i highly doubt it will ever catch due to ppl not *seeing* the result of what they buy (a physics engine being quite abstract). The idea is good (hardware chip running Havok-like engine) but the marketing is flawed (add-on card that does just that). Just wait until that Ageia chip is integrated in a mobo chipset, or a CPU/GPU.
So i'm not taking risks predicting ever more CPU intensive games, look at Warren Spector views on the future of gaming, i really like his approach (and the fact he's behind some of the greatest games ever, Thief series, System Shock 2...). His dream is to immerse the player in a totally free and lively world, with NPC living their lifes... about this look closely at Bethesda next steamroller, Oblivion: they're getting close to that concept, and the more CPU power you have, the better the game will run, there's so much more than just nice 3d graphics to this game. BTW just like Origin games in their times (remember Wing Commander or Ultima series ?) Bethesda games are pushing the market forward, look at how many ppl are upgrading their hardware just to meet the requirements. In the old tradition their games require the "next gen" hardware, which we didnt really need before... So i label Oblivion "killer app".

02-20-2006, 09:06 AM	#78
gmat Thermophile Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: France Posts: 1,221	Re: Well! There is a third way! FEA is another example CPU hog, and there's never enough power for it - the day you multiply by 10x the power of your mainframe, the next day your engineering team finds a way to put it down to its knees. The race to mainframe power is still on and raging thanks to the Japanese (NEC & Fujitsu leading the charge) who are putting a heavy pressure on US labs and IBM. The goal is more power in a smaller space. With time the technologies developped for mainframes trickle down to consumer level (look at AMD64 platform architecture..) so i'd say we're not near the end of the race. About physics engines they're now able to simulate full newtonian physics (in a limited reference frame though, but enough for games), they're now at such a point that whole companies are specialized in programming and licencing them (heard of Havok ?). For todays games i think they all licence a 3rd party physics engine, it's just logical (and saves man-years of work). Still those engines are highly tuned down to suit just the needs of the game, and not hog all the CPU cycles. There's also this Ageia thing, although i highly doubt it will ever catch due to ppl not seeing the result of what they buy (a physics engine being quite abstract). The idea is good (hardware chip running Havok-like engine) but the marketing is flawed (add-on card that does just that). Just wait until that Ageia chip is integrated in a mobo chipset, or a CPU/GPU. So i'm not taking risks predicting ever more CPU intensive games, look at Warren Spector views on the future of gaming, i really like his approach (and the fact he's behind some of the greatest games ever, Thief series, System Shock 2...). His dream is to immerse the player in a totally free and lively world, with NPC living their lifes... about this look closely at Bethesda next steamroller, Oblivion: they're getting close to that concept, and the more CPU power you have, the better the game will run, there's so much more than just nice 3d graphics to this game. BTW just like Origin games in their times (remember Wing Commander or Ultima series ?) Bethesda games are pushing the market forward, look at how many ppl are upgrading their hardware just to meet the requirements. In the old tradition their games require the "next gen" hardware, which we didnt really need before... So i label Oblivion "killer app".