Multi-core processors have seriously started to spread now and as dual-core processors have become the more or less standard in 2006, Intel has now launched the first quad-core processor. The biggest problem is still the games market though, which is usually the market which pushes the development of extreme hardware forward, but is now the party which has to catch up. Games is simply not optimized for working in parallel in the same way as rendering programs or other work applications. But game developers have started to show interest in multithreading and one of the companies working the hardest is Valve.
After its success with the Half-Life series, Valve is one of the hottest game developers on the market and it has never been late with adopting new technologies. Valve recently held a press event where it spoke up on its work with optimizing games for multi-core processors and things are looking very promising. The goal has been to achieve a 100% workload even with quad-core, octo-core and processors with even more cores, which would give Valve whole new possibilities to develop new graphical effects, but also other technologies such as AI and physics.
By developing a new multithreading technology, hybrid threading, it has been able to achieve up to 3.2 times as high performance with a quad-core processor when comparing to an equivalent single-core processor. Gabe Newell had the following to say about the work with multithreading for games;
“the most significant development to PC games since the advent of the 3D card…”
We’re really looking forward to seeing Valve’s new technologies in action, but until then you can read on about its work in some of the articles which have appeared.
:: Ars Technica :: TweakTown ::
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