Game developers on academic research

In the past month, I’ve had the pleasure of attending two conferences bringing together academics and the games industry. The first was I3D, the Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games, sponsored by ACM SIGGRAPH. The second was GSCSE, or Game Development in Computer Science Education. GDCSE was formerly the Microsoft Academic Days in Gaming Conference, but this year’s was co-sponsored by EA and held in cooperation with ACM SIGCSE. One of the most interesting things to come out of both was the perspectives of games industry veterans on the roles of university research in the games industry. Here are a few of my notes, from most researchy (I3D) to most industry focused (GDCSE).
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Wiimote head tracking

CMU PhD student Johnny Chung Lee has done some amazingly cool things with the Nintendo Wii remote (Wiimote). My favorite is using it for true 3D virtual reality head tracking. Compare that to the thousands you’d spend for a magnetic tracker from Ascension or Polhemus. Admittedly, magnetic trackers don’t have the line of sight constraints of the infrared Wiimote, but for “fish tank VR”, where your computer screen serves as a 3D window into the virtual world, that’s probably just fine. Need convincing? Check the video out the video on his web site.

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How to build your own gaming computer

If you were motivated by Professor Olano’s recent post on games that require high-end machines to, here’s a site for you — Learn How to Build Your Own Gaming Computers. It covers all aspects of assembling a computer optimized for gaming. Building your own box or upgrading your current one can save you money as well as give you hands on experience with current hardware technology.

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Targetting the high-end sliver of the game market

Seen over at Beyond3D: The PC version of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed requires a dual-core machine with at least two gigabytes of RAM (plus a handful of other requirements on graphics cards and the like that, while certainly not low end, are not unheard of either). I’m a big fan of technology and doing the most you can with the latest and greatest thing out there, but the minimum requirements for most games are pretty pedestrian, with extra bells and whistles if you have something better on your desk. Requiring a reasonably snazzy machine before you say go is a bold choice, but also somewhat risky since they’re potentially missing out on a bunch of potential customers who don’t meet the minimum. Is this the harbinger of high-end games to come, or a decision they’ll regret later? Well, they’ve sold 2.5 million copies of the console version, so maybe they’re just not so worried about those few extra customers.

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Microsoft launches effort to exploit multicore processors

In yesterday’s New York Times, John Markoff wrote (Faster Chips Are Leaving Programmers in Their Dust) about a major new effort Microsoft is making to develop their capability to exploit the new multicore processors being developed by Intel, AMD and IBM.

When he was chief executive of Intel in the 1990s, Andrew S. Grove would often talk about the “software spiral” — the interplay between ever-faster microprocessor chips and software that required ever more computing power.

The potential speed of chips is still climbing, but now the software they run is having trouble keeping up. Newer chips with multiple processors require dauntingly complex software that breaks up computing chores into chunks that can be processed at the same time.

The challenges have not dented the enthusiasm for the potential of the new parallel chips at Microsoft, where executives are betting that the arrival of manycore chips — processors with more than eight cores, possible as soon as 2010 — will transform the world of personal computing.

The company is mounting a major effort to improve the parallel computing capabilities in its software.

“Microsoft is doing the right thing in trying to develop parallel software,” said Andrew Singer, a veteran software designer who is the co-founder of Rapport Inc., a parallel computing company based in Redwood City, Calif. “They could be roadkill if somebody else figures out how to do this first.”

Games and interactive entertainment are among the first application areas to benefit from multicore processors, primarily through the Sony PS3 console.

The UMBC Games, Animation and Interactive Media programs includes the study of parallel and multicore computing as one of the key technologies in the Computer Science track and in partnership with UMBC’s new Multicore Computing Center. This coming Spring, for example, UMBC is offering a special topics course (CMSC 491s/691s) on the topic — Introduction to Cell Processors and Applications.

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Top ten tech challenges for game developers

Popular Science identifies the top ten technical challenges facing
game developers today.

“Today’s videogames draw on sophisticated science like biomechanics, fluid dynamics and computational geometry to be lifelike and exciting. Here are the 10 greatest challenges of making them. See for yourself—it’s virtual reality, but it’s real work”. (link)

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Survey reveals gamers unaware of console capabilities

Ars Technica reports on a survey of 6,260 people that game console users are unaware of some of the advanced capabilities of their boxes.

“The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles are marvels of technology. The PlayStation 3 features a Blu-ray player, the ability to stream video and music from your PC, and it’s a very impressive upscaling DVD player. The 360 has a robust selection of movies and television shows you can purchase and rent through the Xbox Live service, and with VGA or HDMI connections it will also upscale your DVDs. For some gamers, these functions go a long way towards justifying the high price of these systems, but a new study from the NPD Group suggests that not only are people not using these functions, they’re not even aware of them.”

(spotted on slashdot)

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Humans win first Man-Machine Poker Championship

This week the anual conference for the Association for the Advancement Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) hosted the First Man-Machine Poker Championship. A poker-playing computer program developed by researchers from the University of Alberta challenged two top-level poker professionals in a controlled scientific experiment with $50,000 of real money on the line. The game? Texas Hold ‘Em heads-up limit poker.

“The competition will consist of four 500-hand duplicate matches. In each duplicate match, the same series of cards will be dealt in two parallel Man versus Machine matches, with teammates playing the opposite hands in each game. At the end of the match, the total number of chips won or lost by each team is added together to determine the winning team. This format is used to reduce the element of random luck to a minimum, and get a much better indication of the differences in skill.

The human team of Phil Laak and Ali Eslami won two rounds out of three and hence the match.

Here’s the kickoff introduction by Jonathan Schaeffer from the University of Alberta and a post match interview with Phil and Ali

You can also read John Markoff’s story in the times, In Poker Match Against a Machine, Humans Are Better Bluffers. Ironically, that story appeared in the Times’ business section.

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Security and games: exploiting online games

Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) like World of Warcraft and Second Life are large, complex, dynamic distributed software systems with hundreds of thousands of users scattered around the world. A new book, Exploiting Online Games explores a range of security issues associated with these games, including topics like the following.

• Why online games are a harbinger of software security issues to come
• How millions of gamers have created billion-dollar virtual economies
• How game companies invade personal privacy
• Why some gamers cheat
• Techniques for breaking online game security
• How to build a bot to play a game for you
• Methods for total conversion and advanced mods

Tim Wilson of Dark Reading motivated it this way in his post about the book

“You’re playing an online game in which players are warriors who can only walk, jump, or run. Suddenly, another player appears out of nowhere, draws his sword, and hacks you to bits. Game over. But were you really beaten by a superior player? Or did a hacker or cheater simply rig the game?”

This book illustrates a theme that underlies the game track in the CMSC program. Studying computer games is a good way to learn the basic principles of computer science and studying computer science is a good way to prepare yourself for a career in the interactive entertainment industry.

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Eurographics announces Game Physics Innovation Competition

Eurographics, the European association for computer graphics, announced a competition for the most innovative use of physics in games. Any individual or group can enter, as long as the entry is not part of a shipping game. Entries are due August 24th, 2007. Grand prize is 1500 Euros to the entry judged to exhibit the best combination of innovation and technical achievement. Details at isg.cs.tcd.ie/eg07.

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