Blog for Eric Preisz at GarageGames.com

Proud to Be a Dork

Eric Preisz — 2008-08-24T06:47:51+00:00

Nerdy is in. Really. Even Kattie Holmes, mother of a baby name Suri, wife of Tom Cruise, admits to being a nerd.

I find myself getting excited about nerdy things lately. I know what excites me is nerdy because my newly wed wife gives me that "second thoughts" look. Sorry hun, your cold feet seemed plenty warm in the sands of a Mexican honeymoon.

I don't get it, doesn't she find Intel's Larrabee processor's promise of a programmable raster operations unit exciting? Gosh, I feel like I don't even know her any more.

Here's what's been exciting me lately:

Dorky papers -so I put together a Digg clone that I hope will become a valuable asset to our industry. Please, if you ever come across a good paper, feel free to add it to my new on-line book marking system aptly named, indexbuffer.com (I now own indexbuffer.com and vertexbuffer.com...retirement, here I come.)

Austin GDC - I didn't want to go through the rigamoral of actually proposing a worthwhile discussion like that charming Ben Garney - so I bought one. Check out my talk at GDC about how we(meaning me and Full Sail University) can increase your game's performance.

Book - I hate having free weekends, so I decided to pick up a book contract about video game optimization. Here's something cool: Ben Garney is working on it with me. Here's something cooler: Mike Abrash is looking over it and giving us some great feedback. Here's something not cool: I'm a programmer and therefore every line I write starts with "//".

Mars Game - The officers of the full sail simulation club are working on a game about colonizing mars. We plan on submitting it to the serious game challenge. We have some other opportunities hidden up our sleeves, maybe someday we can let you in on our news.

GPGPU - Seriously, we are at the dawn of GPU type programming. GPUs and CPUs are becoming very similar. Larrabee, AMD purchasing ATI, NVIDIA changing their approach from game developer hardware to "visual computing" (what happened to that last visual computing company SGI anyways?). Doing computations on the GPU is the new black. Here's a video of a modded NVIDIA demo I'm working on that demonstrates using particle systems to simulate fluids on the GPU using CUDA. The next step is to extract a surface from these golden intelligent agents.

I've got some other dorky news that I would like to share with you; however, by sharing, I may upset the happiest lawyers in the world. For now, I'll just leave with the final suggestion that defines my existence as a dork.....

I'm writing a blog at 2:45 in the morning....in only boxer briefs.

Developer Stereotypes: Decade by Decade

Eric Preisz — 2008-06-23T15:19:51+00:00

Developer Stereotypes: Decade by Decade

I had a conversation over the weekend that I thought would make an interesting blog. I'm very curious to find out if my perception of this topic is universal or a take on my warped personality.

As a developer, I find that there are some personality traits that exist within the different age decades of developers. Now that I am entering my 30's, I'm wondering if I have entered into the personality traits that I dreaded in my 20s.

Let me explain by giving my stereotypes of developers-by-decade using an astronomical sign dating column format.

Young Gun (Decade: 20s): The young gun is eager, willing, somewhat confused, and full of idealistic beliefs on silver bullet solutions. Two words that describe the young gun is "exuberant process". The young gun works better with the 40s than the 30s as long as the 40s something is at least somewhat technically savvy. The young gun doesn't understand why the 30s doesn't listen to them and take their ideas about a better process more seriously.

Top Gun (Decade:30s): Top Gun will do anything to get the job done. The 30's can be heard making quotes such as, "forgiveness is easier than permission", or the "squeaky wheel gets the grease". Top Gun is annoyed by the idealism of the Young Gun because it reminds them of the way they were. Top Gun knows they can outwork a 40s something because they are energetic and at the tipping point for wealth and retirement. The 30s is the opposite pendulum swing from the extremes of process and idealism of the Young Gun.

Wise One( Decade:40s): The Wise one is typically pessimistic and is confident about how the world really works. They know how to utilize the Young Gun correctly to help them get home by 5:30 so they can make up for the time they lost with their family in their 30s. The Wise one also understands the concern of the Top Gun and allows them to shoot themselves in the foot a couple of times before saying something...wise. The wise one utilizes the right amount of process needed for the scope of the job. The key word(s) for the Wise One is "balance" or in some cases "surrendered".

Looking forward to your comments on how you fit/don't fit my ideas of our stereotypes. Does anyone want to cover the 50s for us?

Optimizing Marble Blast Ultra

Eric Preisz — 2008-03-30T23:53:51+00:00

In case you didn't make it to GDC this year, I wrote a paper version of a case study I presented where I used NVIDIA's PerfHUD to look for bottlenecks and hotspots in Marble Blast Ultra.

PerfHUD is a great tool for all of your GPU detection. It also gives you info on CPU issues such as drivers and API. You can integrate it easily into any DirectX version of Torque.

Links on developer page(Temp link).

Perma link

Green Screens, Mo-Cap, and Research...oh My!

Eric Preisz — 2008-03-27T13:33:26+00:00

C2C Simulation, LLC is proud to announce our new capabilities brought to us through Full Sail University's new research institute.

First off, that's not a type-o, Full Sail is now officially a University. In the preceding link you can learn how the institute and masters programs at Full Sail helped us reach this goal.

My role at Full Sail includes teaching Optimization, Department Chair of our Game Architecture department, and Principal Investigator for the MS&T lab. With Full Sail's sincere backing, C2C and the research institute can provide truly world class production capabilities. Full Sail has millions, upon millions, invested in the latest technologies for not only our bachelor's Game Development program, but also our other 12 programs including master degrees.

I have always been excited to be a part of Full Sail, but I am truly blown away by this opportunity to expose this great school to the industry using these new channels.

So what does this relationship bring C2C? Access to: a 12 camera motion capture studio, handfuls of recording studios, post processing, film, HD studios, game artists, animators, educational outlets, virtual set (think green screen ++ ) and game development course directors, lab instructors, and students. The scope is phenomenal.

The main goal of the Research Institute is to bring in the best talent of the industry and academia to our students. If that's you, please contact us. Our students are our primary focus, the research institute provides the means for keeping up with today's technology.

For more on this announcement, visit the C2C website.

GDC and C2C

Eric Preisz — 2008-02-14T08:00:22+00:00

I hope to catch up with as many of you as possible at GDC this year. I've been so busy lately and distracted from the GG community that I rarely post anymore. I do keep my eye on everything that goes on though.

Here are my new developments...

-GDC, 20 minute presentation w/ NVIDIA on a case study using NVPerfHUD to optimize Marble Blast Ultra. Thursday @ 10:30. The talk is titled GPU Optimization with the Latest NVIDIA Performance Tools. A paper will also be available on their website.

-GDC, looking to finalize the details on a publishing contract for a book on Video Game Optimization. It will be co-authored by someone in the GG community but I didn't ask him if I could put his name in this before I posted it.

-C2C Simulation, LLC. ( www.c2csimulation.com ) has office space and things are going well. We are investigating a new direction that will give us world class capabilities for producing game technology products. We will have access to a motion capture studio, recording studios, green room, tons of great programming and art talent, administration, a firm of lawyers and contract writers. All of this without selling a single share of the company. Too good to be true? More to follow...

-Venagen, an optimization services group within C2C is looking to optimize your games. Heck, we've even consulted for software developers on Wall Street. Find out more at www.venagen.com

-Getting married in April, can't wait. We are having a very small wedding here in Orlando.

-I started a simulation club at Full Sail. If you are looking for a b.s. student who has a gaming background search our club web site. www.fullsailsimulation.com

-At FullSail, I have been promoted to department chair for Machine Architecture 1, Machine Architecture 2, Optimization, Game Networking, AI, and Software Architecture. We are looking for lab instructors who have 4 years experience and solid c++ knowledge. If you are interested, e-mail me at epreisz at fullsail.com

That's all for now. If I don't see you, have a great GDC and safe travels!

Full Sail and Simulation

Eric Preisz — 2007-10-04T02:47:44+00:00

I am proud to announce the beginning of the new Full Sail Simulation Club. For those of you who don't know, I am a course director for Optimization at Full Sail. Last week, we had our first Simulation Club meeting and 47 students attended. Here's the official press release.

Full Sail's Game Development Bachelor's degree program is proud to
announce their new Simulation Club. The focus of this group is to
generate awareness between Orlando's simulation industry and Full
Sail's monthly graduating classes. Full Sail's students graduate
after completing a rigorous schedule that develops the skills needed
for industries that focus on DirectX, OpenGL, networking, and other
disciplines within computer science.

We are currently building an infrastructure for collaboration with those in the simulation industry, for now, I am interfacing one-on-one. If you are interested in more info, please contact me at epreisz ( at ) fullsail.com

In the near future, we hope to have an interactive web portal and job fairs to meet the needs of a growing video game/simulation/training industry and student population.

10 myths of VGO

Eric Preisz — 2007-09-13T23:28:07+00:00

Check out my article in Gamasutra on Video Game Optimization(VGO). www.gamasutra.com!

I was just thinking today, while watching some programmers new to Torque, that we are spoiled. People were voicing opinions about some of the nuances of using the Torque editors, things that I don't even realize anymore because I've pavloved them away.

I sound like an old curmudgeon at only 7 years in this industry saying, "In my day, we had flat files....and we like it! We loved it!....csv files are for the rich!".

So on this, the 256th day of the year, I would like to thank the programmers who paved the way to the new technologies. Without them, I would have to complain about politics.

Video Game Optimization (VGO)

Eric Preisz — 2007-07-19T13:25:48+00:00

Video Game Optimization is one of my passions. I didn't realize it until about the last year, but video game hardware and trends are likely to drive a major portion of all of the entire processing market. Chipmakers are changing their focus, due to the limitations of heat and the speed of light, from more horsepower to more cores. Remember the days when chipmaker marketing focused on the almighty GHz? Video Games and multi-processing are tightly coupled today, and even more so in the future.

Has multi-threaded code ever been as important as it is now? Sure, it's been the single most important concept in retail game hardware for the past 7 years, it's just a bit obscure. Graphics cards are inherently multi-threaded. It's even more interesting to note that when using graphics cards, we take advantage of multi-threaded code/hardware without needing to write the syncing code associated with multi-threaded CPU programming.

There is an interesting race occurring right now (no not a race condition). There are two multi-process approaches to processing. In one corner, the CPU -a low latency low throughput processor. In the other corner, the GPU -a high latency, high throughput processor. May the best silicone win. Judging from the past 5 years, the GPU will outpace parallel processing performance growth for the next 5 years.

Maybe we shouldn't use the term graphics cards anymore. In my opinion, they should be called parallel processing cards. There is some anecdotal data out there to support this name. First, the evolution of GPGPU. Second, both ATI and NVIDA now have programming languages for their cards so that programmers can access the hardware without needing a graphics API. Lastly, AMD proactively squashed GPU encroachment by purchasing ATI. Did someone feel threatened?

In concert with this evolution of processing power, I am proud to offer a preview of a new service to exploit this hardware. Venagen, a video game optimization service organization, is in the start-up phase and will begin ramping-up this fall.

www.venagen.com

Also, for more information on video game optimization, please visit our knowledge base at:

www.vertexbuffer.com (edit: which has just recently been attacked by viagra spammers. edit: fixed!)

Your comments are welcome and appreciated!

Optimization for Video Games

Eric Preisz — 2007-02-23T03:25:24+00:00

I'm working on moving some of what I have been writing to a web page for everyone to read. I really enjoy to making games run as fast as possible.

A lot has changed since Mike Abrash wrote his book, the Zen of Optimization, back in 1994. He writes a lot about using assembly to get the most out of your CPU, since processing, not memory, is usually the bottleneck. Today, assembly won't fix the most common bottlenecks such as drivers, gpu stages, and busses. We can do thousands of operations during the time that it takes to recover from just one cache miss. We can do millions of operations in the time it takes to fetch paged system memory from the hard drive.

Here's a preview of what the web-site is about.

-When optimizing video games, every PC is at a minimum dual core (GPU & CPU)
-Optimizing the incorrect core, or parallel stage, can result in zero FPS gains
-Optimizing anything other than the slowest bottleneck or hotspot is not an efficient use of our time
-Optimizing hotspots smaller than 8% is waste of time
-Optimization is NOT something we do ONLY after we write the code.
-You can make a slow game in OpenGL or DirectX. An API is the interface to the hardware. This sight will focus on the hardware.
-Big "O" notation works great on paper, today's algorithms run on complex hardware. My hardware bubble sort is faster than your software quick sort.

It's only about half written, but I have content for every section (slides, etc.). Hopefully I will be able to convert everything over the next six months or so. I also want to create drill down areas to cover the topics that I assume you already understand. Over time, I hope the information will be more and more valuable as others provide feedback. Any feedback is appreciated. I wasn't too worried about grammar so don't ping me too hard on my writing. I've not real learned on using that part of my brain yet...

http://www.vertexbuffer.com

TIG Orlando 2 - next monday!

Eric Preisz — 2007-02-20T18:23:09+00:00

It's Back! TIG Orlando. - a free event

Network with other Torque developers at FullSail Real World Education on Monday, February 26th at 7:45pm until 9:00pm. Guest Speaker Davey Jackson of GarageGames. FullSail is located at the corner of University and Semoran Blvd in Winter Park. The auditorium is located in building 3B - 106 (just inside the glass doors and to your left)

We apologize for the short notice, this opportunity presented itself in the last 48 hours.

For more info: contact eric -at- commandtoclient.com

-A gallery image will be following shortly.