-- [ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ] I wan't to see how UE3 handles threading.... say BotMan ;) Shouldnt GearBox be working on some newfangled next gen title using a certain engine ;)
On 8/9/05, Patrick Flanagan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > As he said, it's very difficult to write a well threaded game, there's > tons of synchronization that needs to take place, and it becomes > debugging hell. I don't know about HL2, but with Doom3 originally they > had planned to have the rendering running on one thread and the > physics and sound each running on separate threads, but during > development it was a nightmare to code and they eventually gave up > because of too many synchronization problems between the threads. They > ended up with one thread for sound (which accounts for very little cpu > time) and everything else in the other thread. > > The problem is that usually the tasks you're doing aren't easily > parallelizable. You've got to receive all the input before you can run > the next frame,and you've got to run the frame before the renderer can > render that frame. Similiar with physics, you could easily thread it > if all the objects only interacted with the world, but since they can > potentially interact with each other, you can end up with a lot of > problems. Sure you can have different threads running different tasks, > but typically the other threads are going to be blocked waiting for > the previous thread to finish its processing for that frame so that > the next thread can start its processing for that frame. Since nothing > is running in parallel then, you don't get any advantage from using > multiple threads. And thats assuming the code is written correctly, > which isn't exactly a cakewalk :) > > > > On 8/8/05, Jeffrey botman Broome <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Damien wrote: > > > > > > Maybe the Valve developpers may think about Thread implementation, to > let > > > coders use threads in their mods/plugins. Because the first problem > I've > > > found for thread coding is that thread implementation in linux and > windows > > > are VERY different... So if the engine could give some Thread > > > primitives, it > > > may be better (I mean thread_start, thread_stop,thread_yield, and > basic > > > mutex functions)... > > > > Threads in games are REALLY hard to do properly. Game developers > > working on next generation consoles (Xbox360, PS3, etc.) are spending a > > lot of time and effort trying to create game engines that will handle > > multiple threads (and/or multiple processors) efficiently. It's > > difficult to take what has always been a sequential sequence of events > > (get input, move objects, render frame, repeat) and make threads or > > tasks that divide up this work without spending a lot of extra time > > trying to synchronize things between processors or threads. It seems > > like it would be a simple task to just make separate things run on > > separate processors, but there is quite a lot of inter-dependency > > between things in the world, so many times you can't perform > > calculations on thing A until thing B has been updated, and thing B may > > depend on thing C and D, etc. > > > > Not only does the creating of the code become much more difficult, but > > the debugging of the code becomes a nightmare (because you pretty much > > need a separate debugger for each thread or processor). > > > > -- > > Jeffrey "botman" Broome > > > > _______________________________________________ > > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, > please visit: > > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, > please visit: > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders > > -- - Ben Davison - http://www.shadow-phoenix.com -- _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders
