Multicore in Games

Intel’s Paul Lindberg talks on about challenges when developing games that utilize multiple cores. Brad Werth talks about the diminishing returns when focusing on performance and implores developers to focus on features to get a better return. Paul describes how decoupling subsystems allow asynchronous designs to be more resilient when more than the allocated frame time is taken.

[Intel Profilers]:

  • [Thread Checker] – checks whether your application is threaded correctly
  • [Thread Profiler] – checks whether your application is well balanced between threads
  • [Threading Building Blocks] – helps design your application for threading

    • More videos can be found on [Intel (r) Software Network Developer Zone]

    XBOX 360 Back

    I sent my XBOX 360 for repairs on May 27th and got it back June 10th. That was fast! I have yet to take it out of the box to make sure the red lights are gone. They sent a free month gift card for XBOX Live to boot! And the box is back in working order!

    Modo Extending Edges

    I’d like to know if there’s a way to easily extend an edge loop using existing edges in Modo. The last frame of the animation lasts for 5 seconds while I circled the area where I want the edge to be contiguous.

    And why is the color of the wireframes different on each leg?

    I learned some techniques on the forums about how to manually cleanup extra verteces and polygons.

    forum: [post]

    2008 Washington State Biomedical Device Summit

    The summit provided a look at a variety of new medical devices. [Pathway Medical Technologies, Inc] presented a little plastic device that holds an amount of premeasured medicine to treat natal Tetanus for anyone with a couple hours of training. [Kurve Technologies] is manufacturing micro devices to deliver treatments to the brain via the nasal cavity. [Spiration, Inc] creates pulmonary devices to treat Emphysema. [Philips Heathcare] is a large company who develops both big and small boxes and that acquired ATL who develops ultrasound devices. A new device on the conference showcase is a plastic bubble that intends on replacing a standard hood as a mobile sterile environment. Nancy Campbell of [Therapeutic Resources] is working on developing an integrated device to help prevent battlefield insomnia. [Respironics] manufactures a sleep machine that prevents snoring.

    Governor Gregoire recently designated Bothell as an [Innovation Partnership Zone]. This new zone will principally support medical device/ultra-sound manufacturing.

    One hot topic discussed by the summit panel and the Chancellor of University of Washington Bothell is that the UW can’t seem to facilitate communication between biotech companies and the students. Not only do grads lacks the skills to work for these biotech companies, there doesn’t exist a way to let students know of opportunities with the biotech companies. The UWB recently formed the [Biotechnology and Biomedical Technology Institute] to potentially integrate students and biotech companies. UWB has plans of adding a [Technology Transfer] faculty member. The main UW campus has a variety of [computer science research] areas.

    Organizations that attended: [Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association], [Washington Technology Industry Association], [Prosperity Partnership], [Snohomish County Economic Development], [City of Bothell]

    Biotechnology areas:
    [research and development],
    [manufacturing],
    [imaging],
    [medical implants],
    [electromedical equipment],
    [drug delivery],
    [analytical devices],
    [electromedical devices],
    [surgical devices],
    [ophthalmic devices],
    [dental devices]