This year's Game Developer Conference is in full swing, and Loyd Case is on the ground, reporting the latest goings-on. His Day 1 coverage includes AMD's push for open-standard physics, Windows Phone 7, Playstation Move, real-world gaming, and Surface.
Every Game Developer Conference seems to have an unstated theme, a subtext that yields clues to the overall direction and health of the game industry. This year is no exception.
The center of gravity seems to have shifted away from the middle ground--game consoles--and to the sides, if you will. One side is represented by the mobile, handheld devices, particularly smartphones. Microsoft is busy pushing development on Windows Phone 7, an entire set of tracks is devoted to iPhone game development, developers who registered for key mobile sessions received free Google Nexus One phones, and even Palm was showing game development on Palm’s WebOS.
At the other end of the spectrum is the PC, which has been much maligned in the past few years as a dying platform for gaming. Intel announced its Core i7-980X Extreme Edition, along with a leading game title, Napoleon: Total War, able to take advantage of the six-core, twelve-thread monster.
But it’s not just one new CPU. 2K games was showing off Firaxis’ Civilization V, a PC-exclusive sequel in the venerable Civilization franchise--also scalable to many threads. AMD is out pushing its Eyefinity multi-display technology. Microsoft’s public displays more strongly emphasize Games for Windows Live, with more prominent placement than the Xbox 360. Even the show keynote will be given by Sid Meier, arguably one of the industry’s more influential designers, with a long and storied history in PC gaming.
With these ideas in mind: mobile gaming seems to be coming of age, while the PC is resurgent--let’s take a look at the first half of GDC.
AMD Pushes Open Standards
AMD’s ATI graphics group has been shipping a new DirectX 11 GPU every few weeks since the launch of the original Radeon HD 5870. AMD announced a branding strategy revolving around PC gamers, which it's dubbing “AMD Gaming Evolved.”
Branding aside, perhaps the most interesting part of the AMD announcement involved Bullet Physics, an open source physics library gradually gaining steam in the developer community. AMD helped the Bullet Physics teams develop libraries that work with both OpenCL and Microsoft’s DirectX 11 DirectCompute APIs. This allows game developers to take advantage of GPU acceleration using readily-available standards not tied to particular hardware. Bullet Physics will work with GPUs from both Nvidia and AMD, Intel integrated GPUs and x86 CPUs.
Also announced was an initiative to promote open standards for stereoscopic 3D, currently the hot button among consumer electronics suppliers. AMD will be working with makers of stereoscopic glasses of all types, (polarized, active, and passive shutters) and more panel makers and middleware providers to ensure hardware-independent access to stereoscopic 3D for gaming.
In addition to efforts promoting more open standards for physics and stereoscopic 3D, the company announced a certification program for Eyefinity, so that game developers can more robustly implement the massively multi-screen capabilities of AMD’s latest GPUs. Simply scaling a game up to a huge, six-screen surface isn’t all you need to do--that’s maybe the easiest part of the puzzle. Game developers need to put more thought into the user interface and input architectures when so many visible pixels are available.
ATi, if it will help them swallow a bitter pill, do your 3D their way.
To get the best features, I don't want to be limited to only certain games based on whose GPU I bought. You'll fracture the PC gaming market, and I really don't see how that is in anyone's interests.
I second the motion.
ATi, if it will help them swallow a bitter pill, do your 3D their way.
To get the best features, I don't want to be limited to only certain games based on whose GPU I bought. You'll fracture the PC gaming market, and I really don't see how that is in anyone's interests.
I second the motion.
It's called "competition". And it is considered a norm to have two or even more (in extreme cases) competing technologies to become "standard". After a while only one technology remains and becomes a de-facto standard. Nothing to get yourself worked up about, really.
Makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
Far more terrifying for PC gaming to my mind is the proliferation of DRM, publisher greed, and investment stagnation. Everybody of course wants to blame piracy but that argument doesn't really cut it for me, If I buy the game I want to play it whenever, however I want. None of this "needs internet for single player" BS. This is all a symptom of games becoming more and more profitable, as publishers(who know jack squat about good games) have all the god damn money, they continue to put more limits on developers and crank out sequel after sequel, and movie based abominations. It just seems as if everything is getting worse. I think there are what? Three different studios with their fingers in the Call of Duty pie? Seriously?
As games are made for a wider and wider audience I just can't help but be reminded, most people are idiots. When I see Farmville being touted as "the most successful game of 2009" it hurts my brain, in the middle and a bit toward the back, right in the Common sense portion. I seriously worry about humanity as a whole when this is mainstream entertainment. Let me know when "Owe My Balls" airs on Fox so I can start climbing the clock-tower.
also with this notion, not only does it lock out ATI cards, but also people with lower end NV GPU's that can't handle both
also, most physics can be done on the cpu just fine, look at havok and the physics engine from crysis
Nvidia has good connections to game developers, like the Unreal 3 engine upgrade to 3D resently. Hard to say if they can monopolise physics or any other part of these new features. I personally hope open standards and competition in speed. I am guite sure that Ferni could be very fast allso in Bullet physics engine, because of it's calculation features, but it would allso allow ATI and Intel users to benefit same features. It would be up to speed vs cost factor then.
what is evil needs to be corected
if we cant corect, we have one option, KILL IT BEFORE IT KILL US
lets kill PhysX before it kills us all.
Thats why AMD is pushing for a standard that will save even nVidia and all gamers
I understand your point, but the drama of actually having real reasons (other than performance) t choose one vendor over the other adds to the excitement. =)
I think I remember that.
I would still prefer a open standard anyways. Too bad ATi didn't play ball though, I'd be satisfied with PhysX on my 5770.
Something that has me interested though. People running a computer with both dedicated (a 5770) and integrated (GMA 4500) using the crappy integrated for physics. You have an extra unused chip, that should be able to handle physics better than a CPU without the need for a second dedicated card, so why not? (Except for us X58 users with no integrated video)
Also, for multi monitor setups, I'd like a true FOV across all monitors. I hate seeing the images stretched and zoomed horribly on my sides monitors. Maybe have each monitor have it's own unique point of view? (Such as FSX, where you can setup multiple point of views)
That'd be sick. It'd also motivate me to finally buy a second 5770.
Happy gaming all.
great analogy, this is a dangerous and yet predictable outcome of virtual entertainment. Western culture is based around the idea of happiness and entertainment which means for the foreseeable future stuff like this will become popular. hopefully the social changes wont be to severe.