Gabe Newell bashes next gen consoles

[SoccerDude28]

Check it out Valve's boss is talking about the challenges of programming for the next gen systems.

"Technologically, I think every game developer should be terrified of the next generation of processors. Your existing code, you can just throw it away. It's not going to be helpful in creating next generation game titles," said Newell.

[Jake]

I don't know if he's bashing next-gen consoles as much as he's expressing worries that game developers are underestimating the differences and hurdles present between current and next gen development and coding. Or something.

[Twilo]

And I think he's exaggerating them.

[Jake]

He's just being dramatic to get people's attention, but he's probably at least a little right.

[SoccerDude28]

And I think he's exaggerating them.

Yeah he is, but some of what he is saying is true. And I totally agree with the last part:

"Statements about 'Oh, the PS3 is going to be twice as fast as an Xbox 360' are totally meaningless . It means nothing. It's surprising that game customers don't realize how it treats them like idiots. The assumption is that you're going to swallow that kind of system, when in fact there's no code that has been run on both of those architectures that is anything close to a realistic proxy for game performance. So to make a statement like that, I'm worried for the customers. And that we view customers as complete morons that will never catch on and that we're lying to them all the time. That's a problem because in the long run, it will have an impact on our sales."

It's just surprising how many people buy into that crap, after the PS2 FF7 demo/lie.

[Jake]

The secret is: the public doesn't care.

"Oh, it's better? Cool I'll buy this. I bet it has more explosions."

(three weeks later)

"Well I don't remember what my old games looked like anymore, and this new case is definitely shinier, and there are ads for it in magazines I read, so I clearly made a good purchasing decision."

[Redwall]

So, in short, people are morons?

[Dingo Chavez]

"Oh, it's better? Cool I'll buy this. I bet it has more explosions."

That reminds me. Tim Schafer said that if Psychonauts won't sell he'll send stickers with explosions on them to retailers and they'll stick it on the box, and if that won't work: add another sticker.

I think it'll work. (Worked for many other games.)

And this next-generation high-definition graphics thing is alarming. People don't care if developers are over-worked and games are already ridiculously expensive to produce, if it's shinier then it's better, if you can see the sweat above the soldier's eyebrow then it's better.

Who needs gameplay and artstyle? For shame...

[McChicken]

Gabe Newell : It's surprising that game customers don't realize how it treats them like idiots.

This one has to be a Quote of the Moment. And this moment has to last at least five years, so people will never forget those words of wisdom. By the way, have you ever seen a picture of Gabe Newell with a clean shirt ? Can't seem to remind last time I saw one...

[lailoken]

First of all: Wow one ugly son of a bitch

second: In that whole "No one knows how fast these things are"context, well you NEVER really know how fast these things can go, now do you! Of course you have an idea given past experiences with similar architectures and all that, but seriously, especially with parallel computing, no one knows really what these things could be capable off! So you CAN just through ballpark figures around like that, what does it matter? Is the public being deceived? Well probably yes, but seriously, what is the truth?!

[SiN]

holy shit. he's absolutely right. im honestly a bit astounded. its just come to me right now ... shit, i'm geniuenly quite worried.

it just struck me as to how different multicore programming is going to be. read this Gabe quote:

Yes, it is different. It is much more difficult now to write code that will have predictable behavior. We have performance problems now in the out-of-order universe because we have programmers who can't figure out why the changes they made caused the system to behave the way it does.

that is very critical. i know, it doesnt seem like a big deal ... "whats the problem if code runs out of order?" ... but it is. programmers are able to debug as proficiently as they can and optimize code as well as they do because they can tell exactly how the program is going to work ... its completely predictable. the second you don't know what order your code is running in, its trouble. when a program crashes you can't be positive which code ran first. when your optimizing code you cant assume so-and-so was excuted before this code.

more importantly, as a university student majoring in compsci, i cant say any time has been dedicated to multicore coding ... now granted, im just going to enter second year, but i'm quite sure multicore coding is not a mandatory class. in other words, most coders dont have a clue about how to tackle multicore coding .... result? buggier code for sure.

i should also mention that (regardless of what you think of his games) john carmack has a knack for looking into the future of technology. he's stated somewhere-or-the-other that he'll be sticking to PC coding because he likes the simple "one cpu, one gpu" setup. when THE technical wizard of our industry doesnt want to touch multicore coding, what hope does that leave to the rest?

on the plus side, im next to positive the revolution will be a single core ... go nintendo!

SiN

[Twilo]

that is very critical. i know, it doesnt seem like a big deal ... "whats the problem if code runs out of order?" ... but it is. programmers are able to debug as proficiently as they can and optimize code as well as they do because they can tell exactly how the program is going to work ... its completely predictable.

Well this is certainly not true. Multithreading is something that computers have been doing for years upon years now. The main difference with multicore or multiple processors is that the threads can run on seperate processors rather than sharing one between them. It's not possible through anything other than getting really deep down onto the coalface (eg assembly) to arrange what order threads will run in or when they'll finish.

Running 2 threads on one processor is exactly as predictable as running 2 threads on 2 processors, and it's a problem that programmers have dealt with for a long time now.

Also, you're going to learn multithreading pretty soon, I can almost guarantee it.

The main difficulty is later on in the lifetime of these machines when people want to be very efficient about what they're doing (most of the early game aren't going to be using all the cores all the time) in which case you need to be really careful about what threads are running where and for how long.

[Roderick]

EVERYTHING is better with explosions.

[lailoken]

Multicore is coming, it's not like Gabe Newell is going to be able to do anything about that. Of course there is going to be problems, but I can't imagine the whole industry (with the new Pentiums and Athlon X2 already using two cores) is going to wake up and say, "wow that newell guy had it right, multicore is impossible".

Now we all already know that the next generation is going to be pose some problems in terms of content complexity. But maybe it is time to move to a new content creation model?

[SoccerDude28]

Well this is certainly not true. Multithreading is something that computers have been doing for years upon years now. The main difference with multicore or multiple processors is that the threads can run on seperate processors rather than sharing one between them. It's not possible through anything other than getting really deep down onto the coalface (eg assembly) to arrange what order threads will run in or when they'll finish.

Running 2 threads on one processor is exactly as predictable as running 2 threads on 2 processors, and it's a problem that programmers have dealt with for a long time now.

Also, you're going to learn multithreading pretty soon, I can almost guarantee it.

The main difficulty is later on in the lifetime of these machines when people want to be very efficient about what they're doing (most of the early game aren't going to be using all the cores all the time) in which case you need to be really careful about what threads are running where and for how long.

Gabe Newell used to program in the Microsoft Windows team, before he left and founded valve. Now Windows is an operating system so it is the most multi-threaded software application you can think of. I'm sure this guy knows how to do multi-threaded programming. But I don't think it is a matter of just writing your code as multi-threaded and voila. For once, lots of these games are performance whores, so you have to scrap a lot of the stuff you learned in college, and think different. Lots of the portions of these programs are programmed not in C++ but in assembly language for performance boosts. So Maybe "Source" will have to be scrapped for next gen, and he's pissed about that.

[Twilo]

That's more or less exactly what I said.

As for porting engines and things, Epic seems to have managed it (though I don't know how optimised it is for the 3-core xbox, I suspect not very)

[OftenK]

So, in short, people are morons?

Have you seen any evidence that suggests otherwise?

[SoccerDude28]

That's more or less exactly what I said.

As for porting engines and things, Epic seems to have managed it (though I don't know how optimised it is for the 3-core xbox, I suspect not very)

I dunno if they have ported it as much as rewritten most of it. They have been working on it for at least a few years now. I guess I would be pissed if I spent 4 years working on a pretty darn good engine (Source) to make my games, and it can support only one game HL2 and now I have to scrap it, just because Microsoft and Sony decided to scrap everything and go with something that is so new that it isn't even popular with personal computers yet. Wouldn't you, if you had a company the size of Valve?

[mcoupland]

Running 2 threads on one processor is exactly as predictable as running 2 threads on 2 processors, and it's a problem that programmers have dealt with for a long time now.

Unfortunately, this isn't true. When everything is running on a single processor, synchronization (basically, getting your threads to behave in a predictable manner) becomes a whole lot easier. Just google "multiprocessor synchronization" and see for yourself. (The first result is the homepage of a university course devoted to the subject. That should say something...)

On top of this, multi-threaded programming is pretty damn hard in the first place. As one of my professors said: It's really easy to write fast multithreaded code. It's also really easy to write correct multithreaded code. Unfortunately, it's extremely difficult to write multithreaded code that is simultaneously correct and fast.

In my opinion, what Gabe Newell said isn't really too much of an exaggeration. I have a bit more faith that people will figure it out, but I don't think he's overstating the severity of the problem. I agree that he's probably feeling it particularly keenly because of Source, but really, it's everybody's problem. (Even, eventually, the gamers...)

I shall now retreat to my ivory treehouse from whence I came... And continue to lurk.

[baconian]

basically, I think it comes down to this: don't bother getting a next-gen console for around a year after it comes out.

[Twilo]

basically, I think it comes down to this: don't bother getting a next-gen console for around a year after it comes out.

Since when did prudent financing and common sense ever stop us from blowing cash on crap we don't need?

Since never, that's what!

I'll buy four!