What Video Game are you Currently Playing?

[jschild]

Originally Posted by Drumline3469

I work for a small game company and know nothing of the industry, but why hasn't c#
become the standard since it has the virtual console that works for all processors?

Because programming for multicore processors is very complicated if you want to take full advantage of it's power. Cell's architecture is very unique, even for multicore processors. Here is a big breakdown of the challenge (again, programmers who know how to work it can do amazing things).

Here's my take on this (a bit technical so it may make your head spin ):

Most games are using the PPE for almost all of the game's code with some code moved to the SPEs. Before dual core, many games were already multi threaded where one thread would run most of the game code (ie, AI, physics and rendering) while other threads would run out of sequence tasks like sound effects, player inputs and multiplay. These threads are basically dormant most of the time or takes very little CPU power so they don't interfere too much with the main thread activity.

Since the CPU only had one core, this was an ideal solution at the time. With the arrival of multi core CPU, writing games that way simply means the other cores will simply sit almost idle while the main core will keep doing most of the work. Developers now needed to break their main thread into smaller threads and disassociates one from the other so the physic thread for example doesn't slow down the rendering thread. By breaking down the AI, physic and rendering code into their own threads and running them on a core by itself, all that the game developers need to have to run at 30/60 fps is the rendering thread churning frame at that rate while any other threads can run at their own pace. This basically how games are now designed for identical multi core CPU (like the PC, 360 and Mac).

On the PS3 however, since each SPE only holds 256KB of RAM shared by both code and data, it's hard to fit one of those big threads (AI, physic or rendering) into one so they either have to be broken down further and have parts of the thread running off a SPE then the output used as the input of another SPE, or have part of it run off the PPE and part of it running of a SPE so the SPE is simply called to run specific functions of the thread running off the PPE.

This is a completely different concept than what developers are used to and from comments heard by developers so far, it looks like they used the second approach. For example, 2KSport NBA 2K7 developers said for example that they used SPEs to do the players' jerkins movement which is basically a subset of the physic code.

The only way you can achieve 100% utilization (even if a SPE is only doing integer arithmetic, which is less than optimal on the SPE, if it uses 100% of the SPE time, the SPE is still used at 100% utilization) is if each of the 6 available SPE and the PPE are all being fully utilized. Utilizing 100% of the PPE shouldn't be too difficult but synchronizing and keeping the SPE at 100% utilization will be the challenge. It's going be hard to feed each SPE with enough data to keep them all satisfied, mainly because there is not enough RAM within each SPE to have them performing one task (big task are already out because of RAM constraint), unless they are small tasks (like jersey movement) at a time.

Unlike the other multi core CPU where developers will be able to achieve maximum performance of each core without too much effort (they basically only need to have each thread not stepping on the other's toes) , developers have their work cut out for them to keep the Cell happy.

TLR

In a 360 and PC's, each core is typically identically, while in a PS3 this is not true and the program has to be further tailored to take advantage of the different cores.

[Drumline3469]

Ah, okay. Yeah, all my programming is for iOS on c# using Unityyour 3D so I've never had to deal with the differences between PS3 and PC/360.

[Sheep]

PS3, MAG, @heroscaper2011, Raven.

[jschild]

Originally Posted by heroscaper2010

PS3, MAG, @heroscaper2011, Raven.

???

[Oh Yeah! I'm Here]

I have been selected for the next Guild Wars 2 Beta event! I'm so excited for this year and Guild Wars 2, with the pre-orders starting April 10th!

[Uprising]

Originally Posted by jschild

???

Lol. No idea what his post is supposed to say either.

[Sheep]

Originally Posted by Uprising

Lol. No idea what his post is supposed to say either.

If you've played MAG you'd know.

[jschild]

Also, amazingly enough, if you spoke in complete sentences we might know as well. I imagine that's crazy talk, however.

[ABOMINATION]

Ok, so I really enjoyed Fallout 3. Now I suddenly have a yearning to get New Vegas, seeing as how people have said it is harder than Fallout 3, and there is much, much more replayability in this game. My question is it worth $40 to grab this on Steam with all of the DLC, and have the major glitches/bugs been fixed?

[Aldin]

New Vegas is awesome, ABOM. Highly recommended. Don't play Iron Man your first time through, it's a lot of fun, but a lot less frustrating if you're on a second playthrough.

~Aldin, who played through New Vegas three times and thinks it is the best of the Fallout games for allowing you to play a melee character (also not recommended for a first playthrough)

[jschild]

Originally Posted by Aldin

New Vegas is awesome, ABOM. Highly recommended. Don't play Iron Man your first time through, it's a lot of fun, but a lot less frustrating if you're on a second playthrough.

~Aldin, who played through New Vegas three times and thinks it is the best of the Fallout games for allowing you to play a melee character (also not recommended for a first playthrough)

You could be melee in all the games (didn't try it in 3) but I had pure melee characters in the first 2 Fallouts.

However, it is superior in story-telling than Fallout 3 by far. Combat is more difficult because it is more of a FPS because VATs has been reduced in ability by a signiifcant amount.

[ABOMINATION]

*pounds fist on table*

Well, that settles it. I'm off to get Fallout: New Vegas. Thanks Aldin and jschild.