[MUD-Dev] Moore's Law sucks (was: 3D graphics)

[Ben Greear]

On Fri, 13 Feb 1998, Brandon J. Rickman wrote:

> On Fri, 13 Feb 1998 16:24:56, Mike Sellers <mike at online-alchemy.com> wrote:
> >-- Moore's Law still rules. :)  
> 
> The tiresome Moore's Law rhetoric.  I made a feint at this topic on 
> another thread (actually it might have been this one...) but Mike's
> convenient rehash has given me a new opening.
> 
> Moore's Law: the computational power of computers doubles every <make
> up a number between 12 and 60> months.
> 
> Problems with Moore's Law:
> 
> "computational power" merely refers to a measure of how many operations
> a chip can perform in a fixed amount of time.  The higher the MIPS

Points are made, but I still know that I can run Java, Netscape4.bloat,
xemacs, httpd, a database, compile my mud server run and 10 xterms on my
machine happily. I could
not do that on my last, and my next will be even faster.

Sure, MIPS aren't everything, but Memory, HD, monitors and everthing
else is getting faster and cheap as well...

> 
> Second, the amount of computational power available on the consumer market
> is far beyond what anybody could actually use.  The average non-business
> computer user does not have and does not need these machines.  In fact,
> most businesses don't need these machines either, but buying new 
> equipment is always good when you can write off the depreciation on
> your taxes (and you can't write off things like employee benefits or
> long-term business planning).  The people that are actually using the
> fastest available machines are usually closely tied to the computer
> chip industry in the first place, like the chip designers using fast
> chips to design faster chips.

True, it's games that can come the close to maxing out a computer.  The
faster it computes, the more frames per sec, the more detail it can
provide, the better the sound, etc....

> Designing for an imaginary machine is a gamble.  Some people can afford
> to make that gamble, and some of them might make a lot of money off of
> it.  But overall, blindly accepting high-stake risks is not only
> foolhardy, it is bad business practice.

I say those who design for today are going to be outdated by the time
they finish their product.  Design for super high end machines today,
and by the time yer done, it will be a common machine...

> Moore's Law has been manipulated by an aggressive advertising campaign.
> Computers now do less with more.  Productivity has not increased.
> (Productivity was hardly even measured before computers entered the
> workplace, so the argument is moot.)

Some productivity goes up, some goes down or stays the same.  Some do only
slightly more with more, but I don't think many do less..  I'd like an
example...

> 
> This all began with:
> >I had a fascinating discussion with a guy from Intel recently.
> 
> Hardly an objective source.  I once heard that VRML was the future of
> 3D, but I think it was Mark Pesce who said it.  

I saw the new release where IBM had made it's first 1000mhz chip,
prototype, but done none-the-less.  Says it should be ready by 2001 or
so....  Intel and Alpha may beat them to it even...  Even when or if
they slow down eventually, motherboard and CS in general will enable us to
stack four of them side by side...or 16, 256...etc.....

> 
> I'm all for progress in the world of muds, but I think the design
> criteria, especially for the upcoming generation of graphical
> muds/UOII/whatever, should be focused on the strengths of what is
> already successful.

What fun would that be??  I've got a perfectly fine and brand new text
MUD, but it's already old by 5 years.  Of course, we on this group will
probably play them forever, I like text better than graphics, but coding
more than both I spose.  With that in mind, I'll probably try to write
a graphical game for Multi users..but it would be dis-respectful to call
it a MUD...

> 
> A short list:
> - having a large and divers world to explore that can be affected by
> players
> - semi-intelligent interaction with non-player creatures.
> - emphasis on social relationships and actions, in particular:
>    - being able to walk around naked/inappropriately dressed
>    - tinysex
>  
> Things I don't buy that have not been proven successful:
> - wholesale ecological/economic simulation 
> - high-bandwidth/dedicated network solutions

I plan to simulate a physical univers, gravity, action/reaction,
as fully as possible, while also allowing for warp drives etc....
This need not be high bandwidth, if you have a very inteligent client,
which I plan on having...  Still in conceptual phase yet though...

> 
> Things I don't know what to think about:
> - high turnover rates designed to increase software or subscription
> sales (as perfected by America On-Line)
> 
> - Brandon Rickman - ashes at zennet.com -

Ben Greear (greear at cyberhighway.net)  http://www.primenet.com/~greear 
Author of ScryMUD:  mud.primenet.com 4444
http://www.primenet.com/~greear/ScryMUD/scry.html