DH @ Valve Hardware Day: Multi Core CPU's

***Zardon*** · Nov 4, 2006, 07:14 AM

Read the article here
_______________________

Driver Heaven USA Hardware Editor James Gregory was at Valve's Headquarters a few days ago and he has written up a very nice article on Valve's new strategic implementation for multi core CPU's. It is a very interesting read, so make sure you don't miss it.

Chaos · Nov 4, 2006, 07:52 AM

interesting read, I tend to agree that if things continue at this rate we will all need Quad core CPU and Dual GPU's to enjoy the next generation of PC games

Erroneus · Nov 4, 2006, 08:10 AM

I think we are going to pass some generations before it's that nessecary, it's only one company starting to work on muli core support.

dsdsdk · Nov 4, 2006, 08:30 AM

quadcore support wont happen in a loooog time. Devs dont know what to use the extra cores for. And cores will have to wait for each other to finish threads.
And dualcore will have multicore related bugs.. Quadcore will have more multicore bugs.

swimtech · Nov 4, 2006, 09:38 AM

Extremely well written and interesting article - I share the excitement about the possibilities for more realistic environments that Valve hopes to develop. Thanks James!

Rasta Monsta · Nov 4, 2006, 10:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dsdsdk

Devs dont know what to use the extra cores for. And cores will have to wait for each other to finish threads.

Disagree. Valve will dedicate 2nd core to increase frames via parallel prcessing, and additional cores will run enhanced AI and physics routines.

My money is on seeing some of this in Ep3.

Erroneus · Nov 4, 2006, 12:36 PM

No doubt Valve is doing some nice work and properly are going to devl. multi core support which actually works very well, but it will take a lot of research and it's not a lot of game developers who can "afford" or will spend so much research on it.

Falstaff · Nov 4, 2006, 12:48 PM

Think of the all the games that can be written with optimized code to take advantage of these tech advances..it will only improve the quality of everybodies gaming experience.

bananaman · Nov 4, 2006, 12:50 PM

great article guys, be interesting to see what the bods at Valve come up with to surprise us all

Erroneus · Nov 4, 2006, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falstaff

Think of the all the games that can be written with optimized code to take advantage of these tech advances..it will only improve the quality of everybodies gaming experience.

It can, but only if properly done and therefore I believe it will take some time, simply because it's pretty advanced to optimize games for multiple cores.

IamLakota · Nov 4, 2006, 05:10 PM

Very nice read indeed. I believe that once valve get's the ball rolling,it will take off,and there will be plenty of other develpoers working towards the same thing.If Valve opens this door which it seems to have done then my money in the near future(lets say by 3rd quater 07) there will be some damn decent very immersive games out.

BWX · Nov 4, 2006, 06:38 PM

Maybe they could use the extra cores to somehow stop the stutter bug that is in all their games lately.

***Veridian3*** · Nov 4, 2006, 06:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dsdsdk

quadcore support wont happen in a loooog time. Devs dont know what to use the extra cores for. And cores will have to wait for each other to finish threads.
And dualcore will have multicore related bugs.. Quadcore will have more multicore bugs.

Quad core and multi core support will come quicker (and with less issues) than you think. All the top developers love the idea of utilising the extra cores and you have to remember that many upcoming games are being designed with the X360 etc in mind and are therefore multi-threaded.

***Veridian3*** · Nov 4, 2006, 06:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BWX

Maybe they could use the extra cores to somehow stop the stutter bug that is in all their games lately.

Cant say i've seen anything like that recently and i have been spending a lot of time with the Source engine for an upcoming review...

Lelisevis · Nov 4, 2006, 07:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Veridian3

Quad core and multi core support will come quicker (and with less issues) than you think. All the top developers love the idea of utilising the extra cores and you have to remember that many upcoming games are being designed with the X360 etc in mind and are therefore multi-threaded.

Was going to raise that point too Veridian. Isn't the 360 an example of multicore in practice? Anyone have any idea how that shares out the processing load? A link for me to look at and digest would be appreciated.