April 1999
- In-Game Languages Eli Stevens {KiZurich}
- In-Game Languages Per Vognsen
- In-Game Languages Chris Gray
- In-Game Languages Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- In-Game Languages Eli Stevens {KiZurich}
- In-Game Languages Matthew D. Fuller
- In-Game Languages Mik Clarke
- In-Game Languages Michael Hohensee
- In-Game Languages Ben Greear
- In-Game Languages Michael Hohensee
- In-Game Languages Mik Clarke
- In-Game Languages Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- In-Game Languages David Bennett
- In-Game Languages Richard Woolcock
- In-Game Languages Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- In-Game Languages Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- In-Game Languages Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- In-Game Languages Andrew Ritchie
- In-Game Languages Matthew D. Fuller
- In-Game Languages adam@treyarch.com
- forward: consistency Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Confined Gameworld Ling
- Confined Gameworld Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Confined Gameworld Richard Woolcock
- Confined Gameworld Eli Stevens {KiZurich}
- Confined Gameworld The Wildman
- Confined Gameworld Koster, Raph
- User centered? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- User centered? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- User centered? Marc Bowden
- User centered? Adam Wiggins
- User centered? Richard Woolcock
- User centered? Benjamin D. Wiechel
- User centered? Koster, Raph
- target audience Matthew Mihaly
- target audience Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- target audience Marc Bowden
- Fw: Self-organizing worlds (was: Elder Games) Kylotan
- Fw: Self-organizing worlds (was: Elder Games) Matthew Mihaly
- ScryMUD 1.8.11 released. Ben Greear
- Mud driver architecture info B. Scott Boding
- Blending graphics with text u1391470
- Blending graphics with text Laurel Fan
- Blending graphics with text Kylotan
- Blending graphics with text Chris Gray
- Blending graphics with text J C Lawrence
- Blending graphics with text Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Blending graphics with text Chris Gray
- Blending graphics with text Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Blending graphics with text Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Blending graphics with text Mik Clarke
- Blending graphics with text u1391470
- Blending graphics with text claw@kanga.nu
- Blending graphics with text Alex Stewart
- Blending graphics with text J C Lawrence
- Virtual machine design Shane King
- Virtual machine design Alex Stewart
- Virtual machine design Jo Dillon
- Virtual machine design Ben Greear
- Virtual machine design Niklas Elmqvist
- Virtual machine design Shane King
- Virtual machine design Ben Greear
- Virtual machine design claw@kanga.nu
- Virtual machine design Alex Stewart
- Virtual machine design Felix A. Croes
- Virtual machine design Eli Stevens {KiZurich}
- Virtual machine design Mik Clarke
- Virtual machine design Schubert, Damion
- Virtual machine design Ben Greear
- Virtual machine design Ben Greear
- Virtual machine design Felix A. Croes
- Virtual machine design Matthew Mihaly
- Virtual machine design Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Virtual machine design claw@kanga.nu
- Virtual machine design Mik Clarke
- Virtual machine design Oliver Jowett
- Virtual machine design Chris Gray
- Virtual machine design claw@kanga.nu
- Virtual machine design Chris Gray
- Virtual machine design Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Virtual machine design claw@kanga.nu
- Virtual machine design Petri Virkkula
- Virtual machine design Ben Greear
- Virtual machine design Chris Gray
- Virtual machine design Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Virtual machine design Nathan F Yospe
- Virtual machine design Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Virtual machine design Petri Virkkula
- Virtual machine design Jon A. Lambert
- Virtual machine design Koster, Raph
- Virtual machine design Jon A. Lambert
- Virtual machine design Chris Gray
- Rebooting (was: Virtual machine design) Eli Stevens {KiZurich}
- Game design highpoints (was Virtual machine design) claw@kanga.nu
- Sockets Quzah [softhome]
- Sockets Alex Stewart
- Sockets Quzah [softhome]
- Sockets Jo Dillon
- Sockets Jon A. Lambert
- Sockets Jon A. Lambert
- Sockets Chris Gray
- Sockets Petri Virkkula
- Sockets Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Sockets Cynbe ru Taren
- Sockets Mark Gritter
- Sockets Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Sockets Travis Casey
On Thursday, May 13, 1999, Cynbe ru Taren wrote:
> We're swimming in hardware capacity these days -- the costs of PCs are
> collapsing in large part because we finally do have more CPU oomph than
> we know how to effectively apply, by and large.
> IMHO, the low-level CPU efficiency differences between using multiple
> threads blocking on sockets vs a single thread and select() are
> entirely negligible at this point: Nobody is -ever- going to select
> your design because you got that decision "right".
> What matters a hell of a lot more is which choice will lead to the
> most robust, understandable, maintainable, effective application.
> We all learned to program when CPU bandwidth was much more expensive
> than it is now: We're habituated to credit it with far more importance
> than it now deserves.
> The efficiency issues we should be worrying about now are efficient
> use of programmer time, efficient use of end-user time, efficient
> distribution of bugfixes and the like -- not efficient use of CPUs
> which are anyhow 98% idle. I've personally got about (I've lost
> count) 16 CPUs on the internet at the moment, any one of them probably
> capable of carrying all of kernel.org's traffic, and I'd bet none of
> them less than 98% idle as I type this. (Using no less then three of
> those CPUs spread over two states to handle each character typed, but
> who cares?)
> Efficient use of today's CPUs means applying that 98% idle time to
> do something useful for the user, not upping it to 99% idle time.
It does depend a lot, though, on *what* you're doing. Network traffic
doesn't tax modern CPUs much because it's IO-bound -- the network is,
in most cases, slower than the CPU. However, that doesn't mean that
there aren't situations where optimization can be important. I've
seen real-time compression and decompression of audio and/or video
take 50 to 90% of high-end CPUs, and I've seen high-traffic databases
take 50+% of the CPU on high-end minicomputers (specifically, a
system with 6 400 MHz Alpha CPUs).
However, I'll readily agree that nothing that a typcial text-based mud
does is very taxing in CPU terms. When I was reading the mud
newsgroups, I used to be very amused at how, when people brought up
the idea of writing a mud from scratch in C++, there were people on
the Diku groups who would argue that C++ wasn't efficient enough to
run a mud. Given that there are plenty of muds running on
*interpreters*, I had to wonder how much efficiency they thought was
needed...
--
|\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <efindel@io.com>
ZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ No one agrees with me. Not even me.
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-'
'---''(_/--' `-'\_)
- ScryMUD 1.8.13 snapshot released. Ben Greear
- Interview I did that may interest you Koster, Raph
- Censorship Greg Munt
- Censorship Ben Greear
- Censorship Matthew Mihaly
- Censorship Shawn Halpenny
- Censorship Darren Henderson
- Censorship Quzah [softhome]
- Censorship Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Python B. Scott Boding
- Python Gaffney, Jeremy
- AW: Censorship Hofbauer Heinz
- AW: Censorship Matthew Mihaly
- AW: Censorship Damion Schubert
- Censorship, Virtual v Artificial Worlds, Python Greg Munt
- Censorship, Virtual v Artificial Worlds, Python Matthew Mihaly
- Censorship, Virtual v Artificial Worlds, Python Ben Greear
- Censorship, Virtual v Artificial Worlds, Python Matthew Mihaly
- Censorship, Virtual v Artificial Worlds, Python Matthew Mihaly
- Censorship, Virtual v Artificial Worlds, Python Ben Greear
- Censorship, Virtual v Artificial Worlds, Python Dan
- Censorship, Virtual v Artificial Worlds, Python Matthew Mihaly
- Censorship, Virtual v Artificial Worlds, Python Marian Griffith
- Censorship, Virtual v Artificial Worlds, Python Benjamin D. Wiechel
- Censorship & Its Impact On World Immersion Greg Munt
- Censorship & Its Impact On World Immersion Matthew Mihaly