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Game Theory: Offer I Can Refuse

Thomas McDonald — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:15:15 -0600

Facebook is the answer to a question no one asked: “How can I waste more of my time?” Compared to social network gaming, however, Facebook itself is as useful an invention as the cell phone.

Actually, I do like Facebook. I’ve used it to reconnect with dozens of people I used to know. Two of them are even people I like. A year after I first joined Facebook for the sole purpose of sharing pictures of a new puppy, I find myself updating my status, making comments, and listing things like the “Five TV Characters I Wish Were Real So We Could Hang.” (Dr. McCoy, Emma Peel, Hurley Reyes, Simon Templar, and Gomez Addams: another answer to a question no one ever asked sober or outside of a college dorm.)

I used Facebook for a year before I caved in and tried any social gaming. It held no appeal at all. I ignored the messages from friends asking me to join their Mafia, become part of their vampire clan, move in next door to their rutabaga farm, or contribute to efforts to elect Ron Paul president. (Oh, you mean they were serious about the Ron Paul thing?)

Since I’m Jersey born and bred, Mafia Wars seemed like the right fit. It’s actually an elegant little piece of work: a role-playing game stripped down to pure stats and wrapped in a simple graphical interface. It has a balanced risk/reward system and a satisfying initial arc driven by leveling, establishing and expanding an income stream, and accumulating bits of stuff.

But it loses steam rather quickly. The leveling cycle becomes rote, and the game reaches a point where risk vanishes, rendering the rewards hollow. It’s also an oddly unsocial social game, with minimal personal interaction.

Yet it retains one important appeal: It’s undemanding. You can perform all of your duties for the day with a few clicks over the morning coffee, making it one of the most coldly efficient games I’ve ever seen. It’s like we’re even outsourcing our gameplay. That’s really not what I’m looking for.

And, no, I don’t want to join your mafia, but thanks for asking.

Thomas L. McDonald has been covering games for 17 years. He is Editor-at-Large of Games Magazine.

Fast Forward: Parallelism

Tom Halfhill — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:30:12 -0600

After decades of fitful progress, parallel processing is suddenly hot and will soon be commonplace on ordinary PCs. For applications rich in data-level parallelism, performance is soaring by leaps and bounds.

Multicore CPUs from Intel and AMD are all good, but the game-changers are the next-gen GPUs from Nvidia and AMD/ATI. These chips are evolving from highly specialized 3D-graphics processors for games into broader computing engines for nongame software. Nvidia is leading the charge with a new GPU architecture that, for the first time, supports general-purpose computing as strongly as it supports graphics.

Nvidia’s new Fermi GPUs will support error-correction codes (ECC), one terabyte of memory, concurrent kernels, and faster double-precision floating-point math. These features are largely unnecessary for 3D graphics but vital for high-performance general-purpose computing. (In fact, ECC slows down graphics processing, which is why it can be disabled in Fermi chips sold for the consumer market.)

With Nvidia’s CUDA development tools, programmers are accelerating some tedious media-processing tasks, such as video transcoding. CUDA uses the GPU’s programmable 3D-graphics shaders as massively parallel processor cores, delivering performance that today’s PC processors can’t match. In addition, GPUs are finding new applications in scientific computing, financial analysis, medical imaging, energy exploration, and engineering.

Other developments are equally exciting. Microsoft’s DirectCompute brings a parallel-processing API to millions of mainstream PCs running Vista and Windows 7. The new OpenCL standard makes parallel programming easier and less proprietary. Apple’s Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) supports OpenCL and Apple’s Grand Central Dispatch technology (now open source), allowing programmers to distribute workloads across multicore CPUs and GPUs.

Intel is busy, too. With its own new GPU (Larrabee) on the way, Intel has acquired two small companies specializing in software tools for parallel programming—RapidMind and Cilk Arts. RapidMind is especially cool, because its software bridges GPUs, multicore x86 processors, and even IBM’s Cell Broadband Engine.

Parallel processing is spreading to the masses, and parallel-programming tools are catching up with parallel-processing hardware. When these trend lines finally converge, we’ll wonder why it took so long.

Tom Halfhill was formerly a senior editor for Byte magazine and is now an analyst for Microprocessor Report.

Release Notes: What Exactly Is a Personal Computer?

Will Smith — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:30:18 -0600

If I asked you in 1993, “What’s a PC?”, you’d probably have pointed to the beige box sitting under your desk at work. In 1999, if I asked you the same question, the odds are good that you’d have shown me a grey box in your den. In 2005, you would probably have shown me a shiny new notebook. But, as I sit here in 2009, I’m finding it difficult to answer this seemingly simple question.

Sitting on my desk, I have four extremely powerful computing devices, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Let’s decide which of these are personal computers together.

Machine A features four CPU cores, and a host of GPUs and coprocessors. Machine B is more modest, with three CPU cores and a decent GPU. Machine C is even more modest, with a dual-core CPU, but a woefully inadequate GPU. Machine D pushes a lot of its workload onto dedicated processors, but still sports a dedicated GPU.

So, what’s all this powerful hardware? A home-built gaming PC, an Xbox 360, a Lenovo X200s notebook, and an iPhone 3GS.

The gaming rig and the notebook clearly fit the classical definition of a PC, but what about the iPhone and Xbox 360? I’m not sure. Let’s see if we can figure out what gives a device its essential PC-ness.

In the old days, it was safe to say that an Intel CPU and a Microsoft OS made your computer a PC. But now other types of hardware and software are gaining ground on the WinTel duopoly. What makes my machines PCs is that they’re platforms—constructs that allow me to run software that does what I need, assuming it follows the basic rules of the platform. Network connectivity is key, as well. Without a connection to the net, computers are much less valuable. For the most part, I use my four PCs to browse the web, communicate with friends, play games, and work.

Does the Xbox 360 meet my essential PC-ness test? It’s definitely a platform that I use to play games and watch video, and it’s connected to the Internet. However, it’s a locked system, so I can only run Microsoft-authorized software on it and connect Microsoft-authorized hardware to it. I can’t write a word processor for Xbox 360 because Microsoft wouldn’t let me run it. Clearly, the Xbox 360 isn’t a personal computer.

The iPhone is a tougher question. It’s a closed platform, but there are mechanisms that let me run apps from a finite, but very large pool. The device is net-connected 24/7, and I find myself using my iPhone for many of the tasks that I once exclusively used a PC for. This is a new class of device that we call the smartphone—but I’d be hard pressed to describe a more personal computer than the one that I carry in my pocket with me everywhere.

Could you?

Hard Case: Signs of Life at AMD?

Loyd Case — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:47:35 -0600

In the past year, AMD seems to have been taking a sort of “strategy du jour” approach. We ship low-cost processors! We do low-power CPUs! Our parts are great for overclockers! We love home-theater PCs!

Those messages weren’t really different from anything Intel, the 900 pound velociraptor in the CPU business, would offer up, but there was always a tinge of desperation. This became more noticeable as Intel slowly and methodically stripped away whatever technology edge AMD had. Intel’s Nehalem was really the last straw: AMD couldn’t even claim “true quad core” any longer.

The exception to this has been the company’s graphics division. For several years now, analysts have suggested that AMD’s acquisition of Toronto-based ATI was a distraction, and likely to bring down both companies. In the past twelve months, though, the graphics division has been surprisingly resilient. This, despite all the soap opera shenanigans that have plagued AMD--the latest being Hector Ruiz’s resignation as chairman of Global Foundries (the former AMD fab business), due to the Galleon Group insider trading scandal.

As the CPU division was forced to ship underperforming products that often sucked too much power, the graphics guys were kicking serious ass. The Radeon HD 4000 series GPUs weren’t the fastest you could buy, but they did have the best price/performance and forced Nvidia into an unanticipated price war. ATI then delivered the Radeon HD 5800 series, which proved to be the fastest GPUs available on the market. AMD has been selling all the 5800s they can manufacture, and would likely sell even more, if it weren’t for yield issues with TSMC’s 40nm manufacturing process.

Even with the successes on the graphics side, AMD still seemed like a bifurcated company: CPUs on one side, graphics on the other, with some platform (chipset) technologies the only link. Now, however, AMD is positioning itself as the only company with a unified approach to GPUs and CPUs. Nvidia, AMD notes, is only a GPU company while Intel is still only strong on the CPU side.

We’ve heard inklings of this, with the earlier announcements of its Fusion CPU, a melding of graphics functionality onto the CPU die. Now, however, AMD is taking its approach to CPUs–the melding of graphics and central processing–and applying that idea to its overall corporate strategy. AMD is trying to position itself not as a GPU or CPU company–instead, it’s a single company with feet planted firmly in both sides of the computational equation. Only AMD, with its expertise in building CPUs and GPUs, can really take advantage of the coming age of visual computing.

It’s about time.

To be sure, it’s a risky approach. Trying to excel in both arenas may simply result in creating mediocre products. On the other hand, the strategy plays to AMD's last real strength. Intel is struggling to get Larrabee out the door. Its current integrated graphics products are an also-ran compared to AMD and Nvidia’s chipset-level graphics. Nvidia, meanwhile, can’t get its Fermi architecture out the door, and continues its ongoing verbal and legal tussle with Intel.

So AMD has an opening it can exploit, however small and tenuous. Whether or not AMD will be successful depends entirely on execution at this point. On one side, AMD has a world class GPU design team which has been firing on all cylinders. On the other side, the CPU designs have been… less than competitive. AMD has had a poor track record in picking a strategy, then executing a product plan based on that strategy. It’s attempting something new, melding a CPU organization and a GPU team into one focused organization. Will the company pull it off? Or will we look back on AMD two years from now and wonder what happened?

I’m hoping AMD will pull it off, because I want multiple companies competing in both the CPU and GPU space. It’s competition that will drive creative and cool products, while consumers will benefit from reasonable price structures. But the stars are not necessarily aligned, and AMD’s competitors on both sides of its house are behemoth by comparison. Success, if it comes at all, will be a tough slog.

Future Tense: Alan, We Hardly Knew Ye

David Gerrold — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:30:00 -0600

Alan Turing should have been knighted. He should have been Sir Alan Turing. Instead he was prosecuted for being homosexual and committed suicide in despair. The British government conveniently forgot that Turing was the genius behind the Allies’ code-breaking efforts during WWII. The “Ultra Secret” is generally credited as the single most important advantage the Allied Forces had against the Axis powers, to the point that Eisenhower was sometimes reading Hitler’s mail even before Hitler.

Fifty-five years after Turing’s death, in response to an Internet campaign, the British government finally got around to acknowledging Alan Turing’s contributions and apologizing for its failure to honor him appropriately. Sorry, guys, but an apology does not erase an egregious wrong.

Alan Turing laid the foundation of modern computing—programmable machines, the separation of software from hardware—the algorithm. Every CPU that you use, your phone, your netbook, your laptop, your desktop, your Xbox or Wii—every single one is a kind of “Turing machine.” It uses a program to process information.

Alan Turing, the father of modern computing

A computer program is nothing more than a list of instructions that the computer automatically follows. The computer does exactly what each instruction demands, nothing more, nothing less. There is no DWIM (Do What I Mean) instruction.

Even though today’s machines seem to have gained an extraordinary level of “intelligence,” the truth is they’re still just following orders, processing lists of instructions—larger instructions, and a lot more of them, and they’re doing it a thousand times faster than thirty years ago—but it’s still the same essential process, diddling ones and zeros.

Alan Turing was no doubt aware of the speed limitations imposed by computers that used electrical relays. Had he not died at the age of 42 in 1954, he most certainly would have lived long enough to marvel at the power of an Apple ][ or a TRS-80. Alan Turing should have had a chance to see the technology that he helped create.

I’m sure he would have laughed to have seen “ELIZA,” a primitive computer program that mimicked human interaction. ELIZA was a simple set of string-processing rules. The program picked out key words from sentences and respond, “Tell me more about <keyword>.” But it had a finite set of responses: “How do you feel about <keyword>?” and if it couldn’t find a keyword: “Why do you say that?” Or simply, “I see.”

Interacting with ELIZA is enough like a real conversation to be startling, at least until you began to sense the underlying algorithms. But what if an ELIZA-like program were capable of very sophisticated conversation, rationally dissecting ideas, introducing new thoughts, and making connections that are outside the specifics of what you’ve typed? At what point do the underlying algorithms disappear so completely that you feel you’re conversing with a real person?

A sample conversation with ELIZA

Alan Turing postulated that when you couldn’t tell the difference between a real person and a machine, the machine was thinking. We call that the Turing test and while it’s not the last word on machine intelligence, it continues to be a good place to start the conversation.

No software written has passed the Turing test yet—and based on the evidence quite a few people posting their thoughts on the Internet probably couldn’t either. (But that’s a different rant. The Internet has already disproved that old saying about a million monkeys typing at a million keyboards for a million years would reproduce the works of Shakespeare. LOL cats, maybe. But Shakespeare, no.)

Many people believe that the development of a genuine intelligence engine is very likely the next step in the evolution of the mind. Not necessarily the human mind, but the idea of mind itself.

Myself, I suspect that there’s a big clue to be found in the Turing test, in the idea of conversation, because Alan Turing seems to have hit on an existential truth—that our thinking exists in our conversations. Even more profound, we define who we are in our conversations about ourselves. (Answer this question: "Who are you?" That's your definition of yourself, that's your conversation of your place in the world.)

PhilosopherJohn Searle's Chinese Room argument

Some contemporary philosophers assert that language is where the mind occurs--language gives us the ability to conceptualize elements of our environment and manipulate the concepts from a specific perspective.

So, by that definition, intelligence is not simply language processing ability—language itself creates a specific kind of intelligence, allowing the mind to process possibilities without having to have actual physical objects to manipulate. Language also allows us to store, transmit, and share intelligence.

Yes, our computers are capable of storing, transmitting and sharing large amounts of raw information. Our computers can manipulate that information by whatever rules we give them--but the gap between that and actual intelligence based on conceptualizing and understanding remains the difficult and elusive part of the problem. It remains one of the most challenging tasks in computer science.

There's still a lot of work to be done. We may still be one or a dozen breakthroughs away from true machine intelligence. Or to put it another way … the road to HAL is paved with good inventions.

David Gerrold is a Hugo and Nebula award-winning author. He has written more than 50 books, including "The Man Who Folded Himself" and "When HARLIE Was One," as well as hundreds of short stories and articles. His autobiographical story "The Martian Child" was the basis of the 2007 movie starring John Cusack and Amanda Peet. He has also written for television, including episodes of Star Trek, Babylon 5, Twilight Zone, and Land Of The Lost. He is best known for creating tribbles, sleestaks, and Chtorrans. In his spare time, he redesigns his website, www.gerrold.com

The Game Boy: One Step Forward, Modern Warfare Two Steps Back

Nathan Grayson — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:30:00 -0600

You’ve probably seen the headlines. They’re pretty hard to miss. After all, when two of mainstream media’s favorite buzzwords – “violent videogames” and “terrorism” – cross streams, things get messy. If you’ve somehow managed to position yourself smack in the eye of the media storm, however, here’s the story: Last week, someone leaked a scene from Modern Warfare 2 in which you, the player, take up arms and gun down some people. As a terrorist. And those people? Innocent civilians who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And I’m perfectly ok with that. Why? We’ll get to that in a bit.

What I do take issue with, though, is Infinity Ward’s treatment of the whole fiasco. Moments after every videogame blog on the planet’s normal programming was interrupted to bring you this special report, Infinity Ward issued a statement. “Players have the option of skipping over the scene,” it read. “At the beginning of the game, there are two ‘checkpoints’ where the player is advised that some people may find an upcoming segment disturbing. These checkpoints can’t be disabled.”

Which is PR-speak for: “We’re afraid that the mainstream media’s going to tear us to shreds for this one, but we’ve handily built in this failsafe. You’ll never take us alive! Mwahahahaha! *Rockets into the sky using a concealed jetpack*.”

See, while stirring terrorists, innocent slaughter, and videogames into the same stew may initially leave a bad taste in people’s mouths, I think Infinity Ward’s taking a big step in the right direction. It’s a shame, then, that they’re so quickly scrambling to cover their tracks.

Here's why I'm ok with the scene. Quite contrary to what many vocal critics are saying, the scene in question isn’t intended to glorify terrorism. Not even a bit. As your character sprays gunfire into the airport’s mortified masses, people scream and cry. There’s no swelling soundtrack, slow-mo, or utterances of “Boom, baby! Headshot!” from your comrades in arms. Just the terrified, regretful, grief-stricken emotions of a bunch of normal people spilling over and quickly drowning amongst a sea of blood and tears.

If causing this kind of massacre puts a smile on your face, it sure as hell isn’t because Modern Warfare 2 told you that terrorism is totally rad. It’s because you’re one seriously f***ed up individual.

Clearly, Modern Warfare 2’s killing spree is meant to make you feel like the scummiest sack of crap ever to stink up the earth. After it’s all said and done, you’ll probably be sick to your stomach. And that’s great! See, while games like Grand Theft Auto allow players to literally terrorize innocent civilians, it’s all just meaningless violence. After just one tiny cognitive leap, your brain’s performed the necessary mental gymnastics to avoid feeling guilty about any of it. In fact, many players even consider these “rampages” to be the most enjoyable aspect of the series.

Modern Warfare 2, meanwhile, contextualizes its slaughter. Terrorism is one thing, but set against the backdrop of an airport, it creates an incredibly provocative image. So, in Grand Theft Auto, you killed some poor, unassuming sap at a place. Big whoop. But in Modern Warfare 2, you know exactly where you are, who you’re slaughtering, and why you’re doing it. Here, you’re forced – as a result of the societal connotations this scene evokes – to question your own heinous actions. Other games put a gun in your virtual mitts and tell you to run wild. And as you skip through eerily realistic worlds, splattering brains and racking up near-genocidal body counts, you probably don’t even bat an eyelash. In games, ending lives is like breathing. You just do it.

By turning that traditional good guy vs. bad guy shooter scenario on its head, Modern Warfare 2 forces us to reconsider our stance on virtual violence. As a result, shooting people in a videogame actually means something again. It’s not just violence for violence’s sake. Instead, it’s a powerful new spin on our main method of interacting with videogame worlds. I, for one, think that’s pretty cool.

And that leads to why I’m not too keen on Infinity Ward’s decision to sweep the airport scene under the rug as soon as media outlets came a-knockin’. See, for storytelling in games, this is a big, big deal. It’s using one gaming’s biggest strengths (highly immersive shooting) to ignite all manner of powerful emotions within players. And it’s doing it in a way only videogames can – through interactivity. Honestly, when people start hooting and hollering about the “Citizen Kane of videogames,” this is the kind of thing I think of.

To me, this is proof positive that videogames can make unique statements with real world implications. A landmark moment like this, then, should be encouraged and promoted. But instead, Infinity Ward’s tossed this integral scene behind a giant blurred out veil, effectively roping it off from the rest of the game. It’s as though they’re saying, “Ok, we’re going to make an actual statement about war, terrorism, and your actions as a gamer now. But let’s just keep this on the down-low, all right?” Would an R-rated movie skip over its most pivotal moment just because it might make viewers feel uncomfortable? Of course not! Yet for some reason, this M-rated game can’t even look players in the eye when it’s making a statement.

Among other things, this is why modern war games see you clomping into Unspecifiedistan and bringing America-flavored justice to Osama Bin De-Clawed. Because the second videogames set foot into realistic, meaningful situations, developers and publishers start getting self-conscious. Remember Six Days in Fallujah, that non-fictional shooter that raised a stir a few months back? Publishers won’t touch it. Can you guess why? Say it with me now: “Controversy!” Until a major developer or publisher takes a stand against this play-it-safe mentality, mainstream media, other developers and publishers, and even gamers will treat videogames like gutter garbage when it comes to handling real world situations.

And that – sad to say – is lose-lose situation for all involved.

Hard Case: Games for Windows Live versus PC Gaming

Loyd Case — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:45:00 -0600

Whenever I think about Games for Windows Live, I feel like Charlie Brown, trying to kick the football that Lucy is holding. Ever optimistic, Charlie runs at the ball, only to have it jerked away at the last second. Games for Windows Live is like that – heavy on of promises, light on delivery. Someone needs to wrestle Windows gaming from the gaming group at Microsoft and give it back to the Windows team.

In other words, give the Games for Windows task to someone at Microsoft who actually cares about the PC. Windows 7 has been an impressive success, and it would be great of the team that’s responsible for making a better Windows for the PC take on the chore of making a better gaming experience for Windows.

Right now PC gaming at Microsoft lives in the Entertainment and Devices division, those edgy folks who brought you the Xbox, Xbox 360, Zune, Windows Mobile and Windows Automotive. While the Xbox 360 is finally profitable, the system has certainly has had its issues – red ring of death, anyone?

The real issue is that Games for Windows Live feels clunky and just gets in the way. While it’s come a long ways since the fiasco that was the PC version of Shadowrun, it’s far from an elegant experience.

Steam and Impulse, as examples, usually offer day one downloads of tier one titles. New stuff appears on those services practically daily. There’s little new that ever appears fon GfW Live. Or maybe it does, and you can’t see it (more on that in a moment.) Games for Windows Live offers no games, but does offer downloadable content and an auto-patching mechanism. However, that autopatcher is intrusive and annoying, unlike the way Impulse updates its games.

There are other oddities. For example, it had been some time since I’d played Fallout 3. So I’d forgotten exactly which DLC I’d bought. So I logged into the Games for Windows Live client to see which packages were available. Imagine my surprise when I saw nothing for Fallout 3 at all.

As it turns out, I had to install the game, which wasn’t on my latest production PC. Once done, the Fallout 3 DLC list “automagically” appeared. That’s pretty dumb behavior, assuming that you’re always going to log into the client from your gaming system. I can install the Steam client and see what games I’ve bought, even if I don’t necessarily want to download them.

What’s really going on, of course, is that Games for Windows Live is the bastard stepbrother of Xbox Live. All the attention goes to Xbox Live and the Xbox 360, which is the big moneymaker. What’s worse, Microsoft seems intent on making Games for Windows Live become more like the console connectivity experience, and less like the PC. All those cool features on Steam, like the Steam Cloud? Nope.

Services like Steam and Impulse certainly have their own set of problems, but both services are updated on an ongoing basis, adding new features and new technologies.

I suggested, somewhat tongue in cheek, that Microsoft move Games for Windows Live over to the Windows group. In truth, I’m not sure that’s a good idea either – just take a look at the lack of functionality in the Games Explorer. Well, with Windows 7, you can now at least see your games in the Start menu.

What I really think Microsoft should do is become a tool provider for online gaming infrastructure, much the way they make tools available to applications developers in general. Instead of trying to manage a patching system, make the tools available for game developers to do it themselves, in a consistent, uniform way. Instead of game publishers relying on broken technology (I’m looking at you, Gamespy), offer a rational, uniform set of online connectivity APIs and tools.

Or maybe it’s just hopeless. Anyone remember DirectPlay? That was Microsoft’s attempt to supply wide area networking connectivity APIs inside of DirectX. It was abandoned after DirectX 8 in favor of – you got it – Games for Windows Live.