If you want to find out how playable your game is on computers running Microsoft Windows and using Intel Graphics, then a new tool can tell you. Intel Graphics Checker 3.0 integrates with Graphics Performance Analyzers (GPA), which I’ve covered previously, to provide you with in-depth metrics on how your game’s graphics perform. You capture [...]As the size of processors shrinks and their complexity increases, hardware reliability presents a real challenge. At the nanoscale, naturally occurring radiation can affect memory and logic circuits. Variations in manufacturing processes can cause components to behave inconsistently, and it can be hard to have absolute confidence that quality control measures can stop chips with [...]If you ever doubt the importance of parallel processing think again. Cast your eyes back across the 2,000 year span of Western history and what common denominator, from then until now, are you likely to see? There is one that leaps to my mind; the high value that is always placed on money. Money or [...]Much of the expense of using IT in the corporate environment comes from the cost of managing it. That’s why companies lag behind the consumer sector in updating their software, even free software like web browsers. The Intel vPro platform and Intel Active Management Technology make it possible to remotely manage computers, so that the [...]On Saturday, I attended Gamecamp, an unconference bringing together 225 people who set their own agenda on the day for burning topics they’d like to discuss. One of the topics that came up was how to improve your game, with five tips from Graham McAllister who comes from games usability testing company Vertical Slice. I’ve [...]Jun Takeuchi, games producer for Capcom, gave a brief but revealing insight into Capcom’s strategy for creating software for multicore hardware in a recent interview. The interview at Digital Innovation Gazette asked how Capcom has embraced multithreading. He replied that Capcom has integrated multithreading into its MT Framework, the game engine it uses for creating [...]
We have a big tub of LEGO in the office which we break out for brainstorms. Playing with it relaxes everyone into a creative state of mind, and maybe helps us to tap into our inner child, who knows a lot of wild and crazy ideas that our outer adult might otherwise stifle. We’ve built [...]
Ade Miller is one of the co-authors of the books ‘Parallel Programming with Microsoft .NET’ and ‘Parallel Programming with Microsoft Visual C++’. Through the magic of email, I caught up with him for a chat about some of the key ideas in the books, including why optimising hotspots is not the place to start, how [...]I’d like to follow up on an earlier blog posting in which I referenced a video on the Intel Software Network TV about some of the approaches that might help parallel game development. In my previous posting I referenced Brad Werth’s comments on parallel programming problems in games, including how to make the best use [...]On this blog, we’ve talked about a lot of the different ways you can use parallel programming. I came across an interesting article by Yang-Ming Zhu, principal scientist and lead software architect in imaging clinical applications and platforms at Philips Healthcare. In it, he sets out some of the ways that parallel computing can help: [...]