Alan Wake to take advantage of multi core CPU's for physics

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defiant007

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Remedy, the makers of Max Payne, showed more of their upcoming game Alan Wake at Intel Developer Forum 2006.

During a demonstration of Alan Wake on a quad core cpu, Markus Maki remarks that one cpu core is dedicated solely to the processing of physics calculations. See the presentation below, with the Alan Wake demo starting at 16 minutes.

http://mfile.akamai.com/28603/wmv/i...com/10670//idf/event3/092606_pso/pso_high.wmv
 
Oh, so that's the quad core optimized game. Unfortunately that will probably be a rare breed in the near term.
 
Video works for me. The Alan Wake stuff starts about the 16 minute mark, and it's a bit blocky. Hopefuly it'll still run ok on a dual core system, but I guess by the time it's released next year, quad core might be a bit more affordable.
 
WOW, I cannot wait for Alan Wake, that game looks AWESOME. I'm going to have a lot of fun with it.

Interesting about how they use the cores to stream data and load it in the background so that it can stream it to the GPU when ready, should make for easier transitions in the world.

It is still not as powerful as a dedicated card would be for physics obviously, but it is big step forward for evolving CPUs to do more.

This physics thing is really starting to heat up for sure, I love competition.
 
Brent_Justice said:
Interesting about how they use the cores to stream data and load it in the background so that it can stream it to the GPU when ready, should make for easier transitions in the world.

It is still not as powerful as a dedicated card would be for physics obviously, but it is big step forward for evolving CPUs to do more.
Click to expand...

I agree, the buffering of sorts looks to be really good. It's a real 'suspension of disbelief' killer when the game jerks while it loads up.

It's what I've been saying all along...while the CPU isn't as powerful, it certainly is powerful enough to take us to the point in the future where a dedicated PPU is necessary.
 
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2841&p=2

Surprisingly enough, Markus indicated that Alan Wake would pretty much not run on any single core processors, although it may be possible to run on single-core Pentium 4 processors with Hyper Threading enabled, with noticably reduced image quality/experience.

The game will actually spawn five independent threads: one for rendering, audio, streaming, physics and terrain tessellation.
Click to expand...

No In-Game load screens, yay!
 
Wow. I used to say that we needed dedicated processing from someone like Agiea, but this demonstration of a quad-core CPU has me wondering if we can do everything with what we have now...
 
Lol after the demonstration you seen him put down a 360 controller.

Was this really running on a quad-core setup? or the 360 itself.
 
Toytown said:
Lol after the demonstration you seen him put down a 360 controller.

Was this really running on a quad-core setup? or the 360 itself.
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I wondered that. The 360 does have a highly-paralleled CPU, and Intel did say that they've been working on Core for 10+ years. Maybe the CPUs are similar and will work the same?
 
Was probably easier to play the demonstration standing up using a gamepad, than to hunch over and use a mouse.
 
InorganicMatter said:
Wow. I used to say that we needed dedicated processing from someone like Agiea, but this demonstration of a quad-core CPU has me wondering if we can do everything with what we have now...
Click to expand...

Well, we can certainly do more with what we have now and what's coming on the CPU side. (What we have now is being severely underused). But it will still not have the performance of a dedicated physics processor.

I did a calculation a while ago that it would take 75 CPU cores to equal a GPU for physics performance (just in pure performance). So maybe the 80 core Intel CPU would be competition for the PhysX processor or GPUs for physics :D

But what we have now can certainly be used better and allow a better gaming experience, if game developers utilize it. With Quad core CPUs there is even more potential, and it appears Remedy is stepping up to the challenge, I'm happy to see this. I hope more follow suite.
 
Who gives a damn that it doesn't have the "performance of a dedicated physics processor?!" The physics in the trailer look realistic to me, there were tons of moving objects, and the system performed fine, what else do we need?
 
InorganicMatter said:
Who gives a damn that it doesn't have the "performance of a dedicated physics processor?!" The physics in the trailer look realistic to me, there were tons of moving objects, and the system performed fine, what else do we need?
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Holodeck level physics ;)

Until we have absolutely 100% realistic real-life looking and behaving games there will always be room for improvement.
 
InorganicMatter said:
Who gives a damn that it doesn't have the "performance of a dedicated physics processor?!" The physics in the trailer look realistic to me, there were tons of moving objects, and the system performed fine, what else do we need?
Click to expand...
A lot of people.
See it like this.
It's like Playin Dx5 game on Dx7 hardware. SC vs QC
while you can have Dx9 in X1300 to X1950 PPU GPGPU's
So imagine that for Physics.

Also how wonderfull QC demo is we will get used to it and want nothing less, but better stuf.Uh games
It's just like the way GPU have evolved so far.
Physics will get more attention then it has before.
So the games can get way better on the Physics part.
 
SuperGee said:
A lot of people.
See it like this.
It's like Playin Dx5 game on Dx7 hardware. SC vs QC
while you can have Dx9 in X1300 to X1950 PPU GPGPU's
So imagine that for Physics.

Also how wonderfull QC demo is we will get used to it and want nothing less, but better stuf.Uh games
It's just like the way GPU have evolved so far.
Physics will get more attention then it has before.
So the games can get way better on the Physics part.
Click to expand...

Honestely, I'm not that keen on physics dedicated hardware (i.e. physics card). In the recent [H] poll, to know how much would we spend on this type of hardware, I answered less than $100, because I really don't expect to spend much more, to have ultra-realistic physics in the games I play. We already pay a very high price, for all these new generation GPUs and CPUs, might aswell take advantage of them to do physics, as we see in the Alan Wake video, which is amazing btw.
 
dolphumous said:
Any mirrors for the video?
Click to expand...

Look at fileshack. I don't know if it's the exact same video, but they do have some tech demos and teaser trailers for Alan Wake.
 
SlamDunk said:
FileShack does not have the video...

Here's the demo in its original streaming video quality, which I cropped from the WMV source: http://personal.inet.fi/atk/kjh2348fs/alan_wake_idf_2006.wmv (6.74MB)

Flash version of the video stream: http://www.gameklip.com/v/1606/

Different ShakyCam™ version (quality is very nice though): http://www.siliconvalleysleuth.com/2006/09/intel_shows_off.html
Click to expand...
and here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DetnKgOxrSI&eurl=
since andand says the game actually uses five threads, I wonder if even a dual core cpu will be enough.
 
Lol after the demonstration you seen him put down a 360 controller.

Was this really running on a quad-core setup? or the 360 itself.
Click to expand...

It was running on a Core 2 Duo Quad @ 3.7Ghz on an nVidia GPU. :eek:

That's what the guy from Remedy says at the begining of his demonstration atleast.
 
This is just something to ponder....

At E3 2005 Alan wake was demoed on a pre-released 1900xtx and I'm almost positive it was an FX-60. And even on that it looked insane, although no where near what it looked like in the video posted.

So... I'm pretty sure it'll be able to run fine on current hardware just fine, although with lower settings.
 
yeah - this game officially just went on my very short list. :)
 
I would guess, or am hoping that more devs will go the multithread route as opposed to the addin physics card route.. Alot more people have dualcore than physics cards or prolly even dual gpu setups.. Hope it becomes a trend.. I just don't want another addin card .. No Physx.. Nor a second, or third (for sli crossfire), video card doing physics...
 
GORANKAR said:
I would guess, or am hoping that more devs will go the multithread route as opposed to the addin physics card route.. Alot more people have dualcore than physics cards or prolly even dual gpu setups.. Hope it becomes a trend.. I just don't want another addin card .. No Physx.. Nor a second, or third (for sli crossfire), video card doing physics...
Click to expand...

Yeah, but with FIVE threads? I dunno, I wouldn't mind having it support a physics card for one of them - sure, a lot of people now have dual-core...not many people have quad-core. Or, at least, even have it as an option - many Core 2 mobos currently out will never see the BIOS update that enables it as an option, and nobody else even HAS that upgrade path yet. AMD's quad-core won't be out until well into 2007, and who knows the compatibility that will have?

I mean, I'm not saying it's a bad thing at all - just would like to keep all options open. Support for a physics card means Socket 939 users can still have three workable threads handled well by the system - dual-core processor and physics processor working at once.
 
I see your point.. I have a socket 939/opty setup right now.. And in all honesty, will almost certainly not upgrade the mobo/cpu for at least a year or more.. I agree, that a game with 5 threads like Alan Wake will prolly lay a biaatch slappin down on my dualcore opty. But, what to do??

My problem is really with the addin card rage.. And it is a space concern.. I have 1x 1900xt and 1x Audigy2.. I have room left for 1 1xpci-e card and either a 16xpci-e card or a pci card.. With the current crop of boards and addin cards you really have to make choices on what you can have, based more on what you can fit on your mobo instead of, "can I afford it, and will it enhance my gaming experience"..
Do I sacrifice sound and pop in another x1900 and physx? or do I skip crossfire and go with physx, or do I skip physx and crossfire and go with a killer nic?.. Now toss a tv tuner into the mix and things get even more interesting (since Ati killed the AIW line)..

I have nothing against the tech, but I just don't know where to put it all..
Mobo makers have to either integrate even more, or we need more cores to do the work of some of these addin cards many of us don't have the room for.. What I'm saying is that, even if you have the cash, you ain't got the room.. Getting more pci-e 1x cards would help some, but what about the AIPU we are just starting to hear about.. yet another addin card... sheesh..
 
yeh its amazing...but im confused...

if the developers only develop it to take advantage of quad cores then a physx processor would perform just the same as a quad core setup right?
 
agree, that a game with 5 threads like Alan Wake will prolly lay a biaatch slappin down on my dualcore opty. But, what to do??
Click to expand...

Why will it? Because it has 5 threads?

MSN Messenger that im running is using 29 threads
Outlook express is using 9 threads
Daemon tools tray icon is using 2 threads

etc etc etc, just because it runs 5 threads doesnt give any kind of indication of what the game will require. Also remedy are set out to make money just like any other company, do you really think there going to make a game which doesnt not play on whatever the avg hardware is at the time they release? When i say average, it means average of what the normal game playing pc's will be, not what HardOCP's forum users average is :)
 
si0dine said:
http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

Lol, theres your average hardware. Barely enough to play obvlivion, if that.
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You miss the fenomena of "There is or are always exeption to a rule.' :)

So boycot Oblivion, for now and play it 1 or 2 years later in optimim performance with your midrange Gamerig on Windows Vista 64 Dx9.0L.

In between I play other games wich are more aimed at the Mid and high-end of this age.
 
SuperGee said:
You miss the fenomena of "There is or are always exeption to a rule.' :)
Click to expand...

Quake 4, Doom 3, Prey, FEAR, NFS:MW/U, Black and White 2, Splinter Cell, and probably a shit load more games that don't run well or at all with the "average gamers computer".

So boycot Oblivion, for now and play it 1 or 2 years later in optimim performance with your midrange Gamerig on Windows Vista 64 Dx9.0L.
Click to expand...

WTF are you talking about? I'm not complaining about anything.

In between I play other games wich are more aimed at the Mid and high-end of this age.
Click to expand...

Good for you?
 
si0dine said:
Quake 4, Doom 3, Prey, FEAR, NFS:MW/U, Black and White 2, Splinter Cell, and probably a shit load more games that don't run well or at all with the "average gamers computer".

WTF are you talking about? I'm not complaining about anything.

Good for you?
Click to expand...
There was a high-end bench of 5 games Fear Doom3 Quake4 and oblivibiom.
And oblivbibion had very low FPS.

So Oblivibion surpassed Quak4 in hardware requierment with a large margin.
It's the top of the heavyweight games.

So Q4 is lighter then Oblivibion.

And people find Q4 a heavy games wich makes Oblivion rediculess. :)
 
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