Recently I came across a link on www.gpgpu.org that I found interesting. It described a method of ray-tracing quaternion Julia fractals using the floating point power in graphics processing units (GPUs). The author of the GPU code , Keenan Crane, stated that “This kind of algorithm is pretty much ideal for the GPU - extremely high arithmetic intensity and almost zero bandwidth usage”. I thought it would be interesting to port this Nvidia CG code to the Cell processor, using the public SDK, and see how it performs given that it was ideal for a GPU. First we directly translated the CG code line for line to C + SPE intrinsics. All the CG code structures and data types were maintained. Then we wrote a CG framework to execute this shader for Cell that included a backend image compression and network delivery layer for the finished images. To our surprise, well not really, we found that using only 7 SPEs for rendering a 3.2 GHz Cell chip could out run an Nvidia 7800 GT OC card at this task by about 30%. We reserved one SPE for the image compression and delivery task. Furthermore the way CG structures it SIMD computation is inefficient as it causes large percentages of the code to execute in scalar mode. This is due to the way they structure their vector data, AOS vs SOA. By converting this CG shader from AOS to SOA form, SIMD utilization was much higher which resulted in Cell out performing the Nvidia 7800 by a factor of 5 - 6x using only 7 SPEs for rendering. Given that the Nvidia 7800 GT is listed as having 313 GFLOPs of computational power and seven 3.2 GHz SPEs only have 179.2 GFLOPs this seems impossible but then again maybe we should start reading more white papers and less marketing hype.

If you were to bet on a single winner in the next video game-console cycle, forget Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq - news - research - Cramer’s Take), Sony and Nintendo. Put your chips where those console makers did — on IBM (IBM:NYSE - news - research - Cramer’s Take).

All three companies chose IBM to help design and manufacture the gaming chips that are powering their next-generation video-game consoles, a first for the video-game industry that puts Big Blue in a powerful position.

“It’s an incredible opportunity for IBM, because whoever wins this market … IBM is involved,” says Chris Crotty, a senior analyst who covers consumer electronics for electronics market research firm iSuppli. “It gives them a very strong starting presence in consumer electronics.”

Read more

Well, the MMOG Live Interactive Web Seminar 2, hosted by IBM this page Nov 16, went off very well. We had over 575 registrants from 35 countries, a big jump from the MMOG 1 event back in June. All the speakers were very well received. We tried a slightly different format this time, more of a talk-show style web broadcast from our 6 cities (Austin, Canberra, Los Angeles, Paris, Reykjavik, and San Diego) and it seemed to bring a lot more life to the proceedings.

All our speakers were fantastic (especially given some of the glitches as I’ll describe later). Our intrepid hosts, Julien Merceron from Ubisoft, and Marcel Baron and Sheena Stewart from IBM, opened the proceedings up before passing it right along to our first speaker (well, second speaker, but I’ll get back to that in a minute), Richard Garriott from NCSoft (my personal favorite). He talked about generating real intellectual property for online games. He brings a new meaning to cross-discipline information mining! And I thought I was a renaissance man! Next up was Adam Joffe from SONY Online Entertainment, relaying some of his experiences on setting up and running services oriented architectures for online games. Robert Spencer from BigWorld joined us from Canberra talking about some scalability tests they’re running to hosting hundreds of thousands of concurrent users. Steve Canepa’s and Patty Fry’s final round table on where the games industry is going was a facsinating discussion about both technology and business trends such as changing demographics, media convergence, how vendors like IBM are increasingly important as games companies shift from programming towards the art and design of games.

For those of you who missed MMOG 2, you can go to the replay until February 15 here: www.westcast-systems.com/ibm/event/vod.html. For those of you who still want to listen in on MMOG1 from June 1, that replay is also available here: http://www.westcast-systems.com/ibm/event/mmog1.html

And we’re also converting the files into downloadable audio and video files for your own replay. Watch the IBM site for more details coming soon.

Of course, we weren’t without our interesting glitches, which I can laugh at now though I wasn’t exactly laughing while they were happening. Makes you remember to always have a Plan B (and Plan C and Plan D…) in place when Things Go Wrong: Due to a scheduling conflict, one of our originally scheduled speakers had to drop out, so we had to scramble to get a replacment. Our rock star gamers at CCP Games were more than happy to oblige; unfortunately Iceland decided it was a good time to do some tinkering with their Internet Backbone the same morning, resulting in dead air just as we were going live from Reykjavik. Now what kind of icecream sundae would it be without a banana: there were terrible fumes in IBM’s Glendale (Los Angeles) offices where our VP for Media and Entertainment, Steve Canepa was presenting. The troopers made it through their talk with more aplomb than Anderson Cooper! Continuing our sundae metaphor, for the chocolate sauce, Verizon decided it was a good day to disconnect my neighborhood phone lines. Oh, the cherry on the top was the last-minute discovery that our IBMers’ cell phones didn’t get reception at the NCSoft office location in Austin where Richard was broadcasting from. Our intrepid IBMers had had to scramble to get a landline strung into the room. And what dessert would be complete without a dessert wine: the RER regional commuter train in Paris had an emergency shutdown, which almost delayed the arrival of Julien to our moderator panel.

Well, no one ever said it was easy to run a simultaneous web broadcast from 6 cities in multiple timezones. But in the end I’m pretty confident the audience didn’t see the background glitches. Much like Geoffrey Rush’s character in Shakespear in Love: “Allow me to explain the theatre [webcast?] business: the natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster. [So what do we do?] Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well. [Why?] I don’t know. It’s a mystery.” And of course I’m also confident our audience really got a lot of great value out of the proceedings, and we’re hoping to continue this series in the Summer of 2006. So keep your eyes peeled!

Gamasutra - Feature - “How to Manage a Large-Scale Online Gaming Community”
Developers of massively multiplayer online games know the term “viral marketing” well. At the Montreal International Game Summit last month, Rich Vogel, VP of Product Development at Sony Online Entertainment, gave a talk to address how to manage the marketing of an online game community (“How to Manage a Large-Scale Online Gaming Community”).

Video Games Are Their Major, So Don’t Call Them Slackers - New York Times
“So you have these four basic types that occupy the environment: the Achiever, the Explorer, the Socializer and the Killer.”

Nick Fortugno, the 30-year-old teacher, turned away from the whiteboard and faced the 14 undergraduate and master’s-level students in his Thursday seminar. “Killers act like predators, and like any ecosystem, if you increase the number of killers and facilitate them, you decrease the number of achievers and socializers.”

A forestry class on the ecology of the African savannah? No. A psychology course on the ways of the grade-school playground? Closer, but not quite.

Rather, in his video game design seminar at Parsons the New School for Design in Greenwich Village, Mr. Fortugno was recently explaining the basic taxonomy of players in online role-playing games like World of Warcraft or Lineage, games that millions of people around the world play every day.

Nielsen Entertainment Reports on Mobile and Video Game Entertainment in Today’s Evolving Consumption Landscape in Two Separate Studies to Publish Tomorrow: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance
Following the success of Nielsen Entertainment’s first Video Game Benchmark Report, the first Benchmarking the Active Gamer study and the first Benchmarking Mobile Entertainment report will be released tomorrow, sizing each marketplace highlighting consumer-level data on Video Game and Mobile Entertainment behavior and purchasing. Both reports were designed to deliver Actionable Entertainment Intelligence on consumer attitudes and usage insights.

Who knew?

Man buys virtual space station for US$100,000
Jon Jacobs, a director of independent films who hails from Miami, FL, has purchased a virtual space station from the Swedish software company that owns and operates the Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game (MMORPG) Project Entropia. This is believed to be the largest single purchase of virtual real estate by an individual.

Do we see a virtual housing boom?

BBC NEWS | Technology | Virtual property market booming

Beginning today, developers can download new SDKs for Cell architecture including Linux extensions. The software components and over 1000 ( ! ) pages of documentation are being made available by IBM, Sony and Toshiba and can be downloaded from developerWorks.

In addition to PS3, Cell is being considered for everything ranging from consumer devices like HDTV and cell phones to supercomputers –things that often have some flavor of Linux.

Linux compilers and utilities that provide software fundamental infrastructure for the Cell Broadband Engine (CBE) microprocessor include:

• Linux for CBEA –Source patches for Linux that provide services needed to support the hardware facilities of the CBE microprocessor. These Linux operating system patches include the run-time programming interfaces needed to manage and utilize the Cell’s synergistic processing elements (SPE’s). The CBE Linux Reference Implementation Application Binary Interface Specification, V1.0 has been published simultaneously.
• gcc and binutils for the Synergistic Processing Elements — Distributed by the Sony Group, this code contains the GNU Compiler Collection (gcc) compiler for the SPE implemented by Sony Computer Entertainment, which also supports the standards defined in the SPU C/C++ Language Extensions V2.0, SPU Application Binary Interface Specification V1.3, and Synergistic Processor Unit (SPU) Instruction Set Architecture V1.0 documents previously released.

The CBE Software Development Kit includes the following software and documents:

• IBM Full System Simulator for the CBE Processor — The IBM Full System Simulator executable provides a rich set of capabilities for architecture simulation of the CBE processor. The extensive set of simulation services available are capable of booting and running an operating system as well as applications targeted to the CBE processor. This is the very same simulator used by Sony, Toshiba, and IBM to evaluate the architecture design point and prepare a full execution stack for trial runs on the first CBE processor.
• IBM CBE Software Sample and Library — This component provides a broad variety of samples and optimized libraries that can be utilized by the programming community to better understand how to develop applications for CBE technology. These libraries are being released under an open source license to maximize the value to the programming community. A tutorial and library documentations are also available in the package.
• IBM XL C Alpha Edition for the CBE Processor — This prototype compiler executable is based on IBM’s world-class compilation technology for Power Architecture™ providing similar advantages for CBE processors. This compiler supports a tuned implementation for the PPE and SPE of the CBE processor and implements the standards defined in the SPU C/C++ Language Extensions V2.0, SPU Application Binary Interface Specification V1.3 , and Synergistic Processor Unit (SPU) Instruction Set Architecture V1.0 documents previously released.
• Cell Broadband Engine SPE Management Library: This programming library provides a thread abstraction model on “Linux for CBEA” for application use and management of the Cell Broadband Engine SPEs. This library is being released by IBM under an open source license to maximize the value to the programming community.

This SDK has been eagerly awaited and although it was just made public a few minutes ago there is already a post about it from a user on the developerWorks forums.

Tags: gametomorrow , cell , PS3 , IBM

Cross-platform game development and the next generation of consoles
The gaming industry has come a long way since its humble beginnings more than thirty years ago. From a time when people were thrilled to see a square white block and two rectangular paddles on the screen to today, where gamers explore realistic three-dimensional worlds in high resolution with surround sound, the experience of being a gamer has changed radically.

Warning: obvious promotional plug for an upcoming (FREE, did I mention FREE?) conference IBM is sponsoring and organizing.

On the heels of the first ever IBM Massive Multi-Player Online Games (MMOG) live interactive web seminar that was held on June 1, we’ve decided to host the second in the series, MMOG 2. It’s going to be via live webcast on November 16, 9am Pacific Time. You can click here for more information.

Much like the last one, this one brings together some key speakers from the industry, and live from across the globe including Paris, Boston, Austin, San Diego and Canberra. The speakers so far include Jeff Anderson from Turbine Entertainment, Richard Garriott from NCSoft North America, Adam Joffe from SONY Online Entertainment, Julien Merceron from Ubisoft and Robert Spencer from BigWorld Pty. And of course, several IBMers will also be participating, including Steve Canepa (IBM VP of Media and Entertainment), Patty Fry (IBM Global Offering Executive for digital content creation and games) and David Laux (IBM Global Executive for games and interactive entertainment).

Some of the topics we’ll be discussing, and taking your questions on, include “Managing the creative process of a MMOG title”, “Creating New IP in the MMP Space”, “Launching and Operating MMOGs - Insights from SONY Online’s experience”, “Scalability” and “IBM and Online Games”. You’ll be able to submit questions through the web, so this will most definitely be an interactive discussion.

The roster of speakers and topics might change, so visit the information page to check up on the latest event happening.

And if you attended the June 1 event, we would be curious to hear your comments. These things aren’t worth doing unless they’re done well, in this case meaning you definitely feel like attending was worth your time.

Today’s news that Elevation Partners has rolled up Bioware and Pandemic Studios has tremendous ramifications for the videogame industry. As usual, Dean Takahashi has a great summary of what the deal means.

Unlike the film business, where the studio system lost control of the creative talent decades ago, the videogame business is still largely dominated by the major publishers. Among other issues, the game developers lacked the financial clout to meet the publishers on equal footing. This deal is an important step towards creating a needed equilibrium between the content creators and content distributors, and pushing the industry towards the current Hollywood model. Pixar has been cited as a model for this deal; a creative shop with the freedom to pursue creative excellence, in close partnership with multiple film studios. Elevation deserves enormous credit for having the vision to see and act on this opportunity.

On a personal note, I’ve been longtime friends with Josh Resnick, one of Pandemic’s founders. I can only say that this deal validates yet again the ideal that when good, smart people take risks, great things are possible. Josh and his partner (Andrew Goldman) left comfortable jobs at Activision several years ago to start their own production house. They were animated by the entrepreneurial dream, and a burning desire to make great games. It was touch and go for awhile, but they eventually established Pandemic as a major force within the industry - with no shortage of personal sacrifice along the way. Now, along with their partners at Bioware and Elevation, Josh and Andrew are in a remarkable position to help reshape the dynamics of the videogame industry. All I can say is: look out!

Tags: Pandemic Studios, Elevation Partners, Bioware

“British educational organisation Nesta Futurelab has released a new handbook for educators and games industry figures, encouraging the use of videogames as an innovative learning tool for UK schools.”

more: http://gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=12722