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Games Entertainment

A Supercomputing Cluster For FPS Gaming 129

Posted by timothy from the imagining-is-now-useless dept.
Paul E writes: " An atlanta company seems to have developed (modified?) a linux clustering platform that is very conducive to FPS games. These guys apparently have built a cluster that will be pushing 2 TerraFlops, which would easily put it between Blue Pacific and Blue Mountain . Interesting that the same time the .mil starts making FPS's, FPS platforms are outperforming some of the top defense labs."
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A Supercomputing Cluster For FPS Gaming More

A Supercomputing Cluster For FPS Gaming

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  • Why do I get this feeling... (Score:5, Funny)

    by handsomepete ( 561396 ) on Saturday May 25, 2002 @04:27PM (#3584924) Journal
    that they'll still try and overclock it?

  • Boewulf cluster of PS2s? (Score:3, Funny)

    by line-bundle ( 235965 ) on Saturday May 25, 2002 @04:28PM (#3584931) Homepage Journal
    What about a boewulf cluster of playstation 2s?

    :-)

    • Re:Boewulf cluster of PS2s? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by pi_rules ( 123171 ) on Saturday May 25, 2002 @06:29PM (#3585269)
      Talk to Saddam Husein about that one... anybody else remember a fairly large amount of PS2's being bought by Iraq when they were first released?

      Now, I don't know if it ws their government doing it or not... but I found it interesting. The US doesn't allow high-end computers to be shipped over there, but the PS2's weren't restricted by the US export regulations.

      While I really like the idea of porting Linux to everything I think it's kind of odd that porting Linux the PS2 might actually help the Iraqi government build a super computer.

      Food for though?
      • You seem to think that Iraq cannot get a supercomputer any other way. The US is not the entire world, hell, most of the rest of the world thinks the embargo has served its purpose and should be removed. Then there are technologically advanced countries which never participated in the first place, such as China. Besides, it wouldn't be too hard to smuggle American computer parts into Iraq if they really wanted to. I'm sure the Iraqi government could drive a truck to Kuwait/Saudi Arabia, buy a bunch of Athlon XP boxes and drive the truck back. It's not rocket science. Just because they're not allowed to buy them doesn't mean they can't.
      • Now, I don't know if it ws their government doing it or not... but I found it interesting. The US doesn't allow high-end computers to be shipped over there, but the PS2's weren't restricted by the US export regulations.

        The PS2 is also made in Japan. As far as I know, the US does not have much say in what Japan can and can't export, despite some people's fantasies.

      • What you have to think is that life is smarter that simple regulations. The Iraki already has access to every damn (consumer) CPU in the world and in the quantity they need and can afford.

        No regulation will ban their having off all the cryptosystems and computer power they feel like having.
      • I beleive the story at the time wasn't that they were going to be used to create a super computer, but were going to be used as homputer hardware for guided missles.
      • It was all a hoax. The origin of the story was some marketing fluff about how powerful they were that got PS2's marked as restricted exports in the USA - as in you could import them from Japan where they were made, but once in the USA you couldn't export them because they had too many theoretical FLOPS. It was only a short hop from that to Saddam has already bought a bunch to build a COW supercomputer to design nukes with. All just media hype and rumours.

  • Imagine... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ColGraff ( 454761 )
    ...a beowulf cluster of -

    Ah crap, it really is useless now. I've lost my purpose in life! *sobs*

  • FPS server only, not client (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Papineau ( 527159 ) on Saturday May 25, 2002 @04:33PM (#3584950) Homepage
    At first I thought they had the client partof Q3A or UT or whatever other FPS running on a cluster of computers (along the lines of those x nodes control the graphics, those y nodes control the physics, etc.). But after readding their FAQ, the're only hosting servers on a farm of servers. It's a lot less appealing that way.
    • Not really.

      The client needs to run fast, but most of the problems it's solving scale well. The server needs to do things like collision detection that tend to grow O(nlogn)on large datasets (and you only get that if you're really clever.) Clustering your server gives rise to the possibility of hosting many more players with more diverse projectile possibilities.

      The client is a relatively 'dumb' rendering terminal in many FPS games. Unless you're talking about trying to make the cluster do the things the graphics card does, but I suspect that the latencies involved would inherently rule anything like that out.

  • TerraFlops? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Alan Partridge ( 516639 ) on Saturday May 25, 2002 @04:34PM (#3584951) Journal
    TerrorFlops?

    TERAFLOPS!

    • No, the word "terror" is now required, by law, to be in every single piece of news that is published. Besides, nobody would read the article if it didn't have something about TERRORISM IN AMERICA. Just ask CNN.
    • No, TerraFlops. Terra (Earth). Flops. "We had a planet. We called it Terra. It flopped."

      That's the whole reason for having this escapism virtual reality-ish thing in the first place. Because Terra Flops. It's a cooler sounding phrase than "Life sucks."

  • No they haven't (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dynedain ( 141758 ) <slashdot2NO@SPAManthonymclin.com> on Saturday May 25, 2002 @04:35PM (#3584954) Homepage
    They haven't built a gaming supercomputer...they have only created a linux server farm for hosting gaming servers. Just like Verio hosting web sites, but for game servers instead.

    Whoopdeedoo.....

  • Old School (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Kizzle ( 555439 ) on Saturday May 25, 2002 @04:40PM (#3584971)
    I think they should run somthing on it like Doom1. They could have half of the world playing at once.
  • How soon before soldiers are hunkered in deep bunkers directing bots on the battlefield?

    • Re:Console Warrior (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ComaVN ( 325750 )
      Better yet, let all soldiers compete in some huge MMORPG. The only problem is, how do you convince the losing country to hand over all it's land and women.
      • I'll lose whatever trekie karma I may have accumulated for not remembering the episode but there was a first generation episode resolving just your question. I think they ended up going to *real* war over the issue.
        • Stargate SG-1 had an ep like that as well... some offshoot of humans decided they wanted thier own Hitler-esque crusade so the purebred people hid underground and gassed the rest of the planet. They used drones linked directly to the brain to fight air wars miles above their current position.
    • And what would they do once the communications channels are jammed?
      • The immediate retort is by analogy in the form of the question: what would a soldier do if his/her weapon jammed? I think the reply would be to ensure as much as possible against such an eventuality or engineer alternatives (redundancy).

  • FPS platforms? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As a gamer from the 80s, that comment really threw me...
  • Let's NOT imagine [slashdot.org] a Beowulf cluster of these!

  • I see a major problem.They are trying to patent it (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I see that their "new, innovative" design is patent pending. It appears that they are using a design that is already being used by many universities throughout the world.

    Its called:

    Beowulf Clusters and Grid Computing(globus, sge, etc).

    Does anyone think that once they have this patent, that they will try to get royalties from companies/people already using the exact "new innovative" design that has been in use for 4-5 years now?

    Just wondering what other people think.

  • .mil game info (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jcsehak ( 559709 ) on Saturday May 25, 2002 @05:22PM (#3585093) Homepage
    The military's new FPS is called America's Army, and was showcased just recently at e3. What's really interesting is that apparently it's free! Here's the blurb where I got my info from:

    4. Americas Army

    Seriously, who better to make a military squad based shooter than the fucking military? This game not only looked good but it had the features to back it up. Finally a game gives you the opportunity to use silent hand commands to communicate with your team. Realistic objectives, weapons, movement, and locations, everything in this game is as real as you can get. Each weapon operates just as it would in real life. Stand to close to a flash back and say good buy to your hearing for while. Shoot to many of your teammates and end up in jail. Try and use a sniper rifle without going prone and watch as your view bobs up and down with your breathing. You also get twenty some odd maps with expansive real world environments and kick ass objectives. Oh and then there's the fact that it's FREE!

    from Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com] (original article [penny-arcade.com])

    • Sounds real cool. I'll download it before some Bin-laden whako wannabe uses it to train his paramilitary forces and the game is pulled down from every server.

      How come nobody's b*tching about this yet? I mean, if the seriously think that terrorists trained by usind MS's Flight Simulator, is there any better training program than the military sponsored one?

      +R
      • Hm, most terrorists don't seem to relish fighting ARMED people, like presumably that US Army recruiting game would involve. It's much safer to blow up random unarmed civvies and then whine about oppression and casualties when troops come after you.
    • Does anyone know what the high and holy Christian wives of America are saying about this game? It would seem that with all the vigor they go after FPS games that one sponsored/endorsed by the Government would have them crying to their rich influential D.C. husbands.

      begin sarcasm: I mean, we all know this game is going to single-handedly put into motions thousands of school shootings as well as modern-day witch hunts by vigilante wacko's looking for terrorists.
    • does anyone know when/where it will be released? an official army website for the game would be cool
      • Here [americasarmy.com] is the site... and the flash intro [americasarmy.com].
        • Did anyone else happen to notice that you have to be 13 to 34 to pre-order it? Anyone ready to start the age discrimination lawsuit yet?
          • No, it's much more simple than all that..

            The silly 13+ rule is because of the children online protection (not sure of the exact name of the bill) act that was passed a couple years back. It makes it illegal for websites to take information from children under 13 without their parents permission.

            If you look around, nearly all websites now say you have to be 13 to register... :/
            • The discrimination factor comes from the high end of the age spectrum mentioned, not the low end.

              I think this probably has something to do with 34 being the high-end of where people can be recruited for the Army, but don't quote me on that. Then again, Grace Hopper was in her 50s when she entered the US Navy.

              This is pissing me off though...I'm over 34 and I'd love to have a copy. Am I going to have to bribe a younger cousin to download this for me? [sigh]
          • well, the 13 part is easy: COPA [copacommission.org] makes it illegal to collect information on anyone under 13, so they wouldn't be able to get your address to send you the stuff if you're under 13.

            I got confused about the 34 part too, though. but after some google searching [google.com], I found some things (including a wierdly titled Salvation army page [salvationarmy.org.au]... Anyone care to explain the 34 here?).. but max age for ROTC is 30, but " waiverable to age 34 in certain circumstances [wpi.edu]"...
            most importantly, apparently the max age for enlisting in the army is 34 years old, according to this table [todaysmilitary.com] (incidentally, it's the same for the navy, but 27 for the AF and Coast guard and 28 for the Marine Corps [a.k.a. Uncle Sam's Misguided Children]/USMC)

    • The game is produced by the US Army, a Governemnt entity. According to the rules of IP, a Government entity can not hold a copyright or a patent on any works produced for it directly, or under contract.

      This is the real reason they are giving it away... the law says they have to.

      But, that makes this game a version of open source/free software. Some IP lawyer would have to rearch more to find out if the source code would have to be released also under the non-copyright/full disclosure laws.

      That further leads to the question of how Microsoft will respond to the Government using public money (tax dollars) to produce software they intend to release for free in to a market that Microsoft would like to dominate (see Xbox and their growing library of games for PC).

      Hmmm. Microsoft vs. the Army... perhaps Redmond will get bombedto ashes after all. :)

      • This is the real reason they are giving it away... the law says they have to.

        But, that makes this game a version of open source/free software. Some IP lawyer would have to rearch more to find out if the source code would have to be released also under the non-copyright/full disclosure laws.


        I like your reasoning, but the government is allowed to keep secrets from us. They even have levels of secrecy (e.g. classified, secret, etc.)

        I'd bet that all military information is treated as classified by default until someone decides it's ok to de-classify it.

        Also, although you're right that the government cannot hold copyrights/patents, the government can license the IP of others. Doing that doesn't give Joe Citizen a de facto license. For example, there are many cities in the US that have licensed their Municipal Code from companies and are heavily restricted interms of redistribution.

        NASA, on the other hand, is a nice example of what you'd like to see. Where would we be without Velcro? Of course, not everything they do makes as much sense. NASA spent tons of cash to make a zero-G usable pen. The Russians used pencils. Duh.
        • NASA spent tons of cash to make a zero-G usable pen. The Russians used pencils. Duh.

          Thankfully graphite is nonconductive and doesn't generate lots of tiny fragments in zero g which might float around and be breathed or infest critical switches/circuits. Otherwise the Russian space program would have been a disaster. :-)
        • The government can indeed keep secrets... when the information is a matter of national security, would compromise an investigation and a few other reasons.

          A citizen can file a Freedom of Information Act (FIA) document request for the source and see what happens. The courts usually get to decide these things.
          Of course the Army would probably claim at least parts of the source (like the detailed performance tables of the weapons systems) are secret, and those would be blacked out of the documents you recieved.

          I agree completely that the government can use/license IP from third parties without that IP becoming public domain, but that doesn't seem to be the case here for the most part. Yes the Unreal Engine would not be covered by a request as it a product separate from the code created by or directly as a result of contract to the government.

          As for the spending, yes the US tends to be extravagant. For a military example, look at the Bradly Fighting Vehicle. Initially designed as a simple armored personnel carrier, it took 14+ years and over $20B to develop. The thing wound up not accomplishing any of the tasks it was designed for. The models we sold to allies had to be re-designed before they would accept them because of the defects and shortcomings. For a good laugh watch "The Pentagon Wars", it's a movie about the whole charade.
    • You can't download the thing; you have to give them enough info that a recruiter can call you, and someday maybe they send you a CD.

      Great concept. I'll have to try to get one, although my military service lies far behind me.

    • Shoot to many of your teammates and end up in jail.

      Excactly how many teammates are you allowed to shoot in the US Army ?
    • Did anyone notice on the jump page [americasarmy.com] in the box entitled SOLDIERS: Empower Yourself the misspelled word desicions? Does that not seem oddly fitting for an advertisement that has something to do with Americas Army?

  • Great! (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 )

    Now they'll be able to do a fully realistic military sim!

    You'll spend two years digging really high polygon ditches, then get shipped to the asscrack of the world to perform a police action, and after two months of dysentary and grinding boredom, an extremely well rendered twelve year old kid will crack your skull with a well aimed rock.

    Abort / Retry / Get a clue.

    (Seriously, I love FPS's, but as games. Please let's not mention .mil and realistic in the same context as games)

  • MAXIMUM 32 PLAYERS == LAME! (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Go to their site and "order" a server. Most games are limited to only 32 players - not exactly a "supercomputing" breakthrough...

  • Terraflops (Score:2, Funny)

    by svara ( 467664 )
    Wow! I wonder where that Terraflop will bring these guys! Is that some kind of new scale for supercomputers: Measure how many "terra"'s they power? (The earth had 1 Terraflop in Douglas Adam's books).
  • Just to put things in perspective. Pacific Blue
    is an antique and dog slow and is now two generations/iterations behind the current facilities at the national labs.

  • If what I see is true - that is one awesome deal. Kick ass 12 player UT server for $35/month, no bandwidth restrictions. Too good to be true. What am I missing here?

    D.
  • I really feel sorry for the investors of this company. There is absolutely no value for this what so ever. Sure games are fun but is it worth $50 million dollars of corporate or even investor sponsored money? If its not to make more money then at least it should be used for valueable research like protein folding or climate simulations. If you want to play games then go spend your own money and play them but not others.

  • since i learned of clustering about 3 years ago my dream wear games on clusters.... its really a great time to be a geek

  • My experience w/ military FPS.... (Score:3, Informative)

    by steppin_razor_LA ( 236684 ) on Saturday May 25, 2002 @09:49PM (#3585716) Journal
    When I was a grad student, I spent some time working on a force feedback system for one of the Army's distributed VR combat systems.

    The system itself was sort of cool -- all sorts of different vehicles / soldiers could interact within the world. I remember that there was a serious lack of standards due to all of the proprietary BS -- so if you didn't have the various servers synched up with each other's databases, your A-10 might look like a flying tank!

    I also remember that the "clients" were Indigo Impacts (the purple ones) -- at the time, these boxes provided the most bang for the buck in terms of high end 3D processing -- the next best thing were the Onyx (sp?) which were $500K - $1M. I remember being really disappointed with the quality / FPS of the simulations compared to what quake would do on my Riva 128 card (if my memory serves)..

    I know that the Quake engine had its share of cheats that allowed it to gain the performance advantages it did, but I thought it was funny that a $2K PC was seriously outperforming a $40K workstation.

    I remember writing a proposal for a better version of the system that would be java based where each of the vehicles would be an object/thread running in the environment (i.e. like those old programming contests where everyone would write C code that would fight each other). That way you could program intelligence into the vehicles and just pass the object around -- no need to have huge synchronized databases describing the vehicles properties .. they would just be properties of the object .. I proposed that they use VRML or something like that to allow the objects to describe themselves..
  • The Jupiter Cluster(TM) will be able to operate at 200 Gflops and will be featured on the October Top 500 Supercomputer list of the world's fastest supercomputers

    um, an order of magnitude off...
  • As long as the actual computer cluster is named the WOPR.

    How about a nice game of chess? [sciflicks.com]
  • IMO, FPS games are the least creative thing you can possibly develop on a computer these days. The genre has been totally overexplored. Anything you could classify as a "First Person Shooter" has already been done -- just a glorified CPU exerciser. No creativity is needed (and none is being used) generating new versions of this tired, overused and completely uninspired form of gameplay. Please, Big Game Developers, find something new to develop. I beg you.
  • ...some of the top defense labs

    That you *know* about.

  • I doubt the interconnection network is as good as the one of true supercomputers. So 200 Tflops would be the theoretical peak power ; in practice, on Linpack benchmarks, (even if they tend to be embarrasingly parallel nowadays with the amount of memory available on each node, the size of the problem being free) since I suppose there is only a fast ethernet on not-too-expensive switches to link everything together, I doubt they could get more than 1 Tflops in sustained double precision performance on Linpack.
  • I don't know squat about clustering, but wouldn't such a thing introduce a fair bit of latency into the system ? You'd basically be tossing pixels left and right, with a bit of state information every few milliseconds. FPS trigger-twitch deathmatches usually rely on low-low latency, where even adding as little as 10ms into the bag would result in a misfire.

    For networking we don't notice, but turn it into a real-time pixel-precise moving target, and you're jumping into a big tub of clustered trouble.

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