Comments on: Multi-Core Texture Loading https:/2008/05/multi-core-texture-loading/ Developer resources for the X-Plane flight simulator Tue, 01 Feb 2011 18:52:24 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 By: Benjamin Supnik https:/2008/05/multi-core-texture-loading/#comment-1047 Wed, 14 May 2008 09:41:00 +0000 http://www.x-plane.com/dev_blog/?p=350#comment-1047 64-bit is still not terribly high on my priority list – see the linux forum on x-plane.org, it’s been discussed thoroughly.

Re Cell, I don’t know. It would work about as well as the Cell can proxy for a general purpose CPU, which is to say, at best the Cell’s immense powers would be totally wasted. See John Carmack’s comments on google videos about the need for generally fast execution of complex and ugly C code, and the limitations of DSP-type processors to make existing problems faster. What he says about fps shooters and C code applies to X-Plane as well in a lot of cases.

(Basically everything that’s easy to make DSP-friendly has already been outsourced to the GPU, the biggest baddest DSP of them all. This makes it hard to find a good use for any kind of additional DSP in the system, be it physics, sound, or a CPU with a lot of DSP-like goo like SSE or MMX or a Cell. The remaining non-graphics problems just don’t need that capability. What they need to do is process ugly conditional linear code really fast.)

]]> By: StormRunner https:/2008/05/multi-core-texture-loading/#comment-1048 Tue, 13 May 2008 19:26:00 +0000 http://www.x-plane.com/dev_blog/?p=350#comment-1048 For fun and giggles, I gotta wonder how the Linux version would handle a PS3 Cell processor. Can the SPUs even be used for file streams?

]]> By: Anonymous https:/2008/05/multi-core-texture-loading/#comment-1049 Tue, 13 May 2008 12:38:00 +0000 http://www.x-plane.com/dev_blog/?p=350#comment-1049 Ben this it great to hear! Really great! Instead of that 2x, 4x speed, we get Nx the speed – exacly the way it should be! So yeah, I’m like so glad to hear this, and as the previous commenter said, I hope next step is 64-bit. My 8gb of ram are ready for some fun =)

]]> By: Benjamin Supnik https:/2008/05/multi-core-texture-loading/#comment-1050 Tue, 13 May 2008 12:01:00 +0000 http://www.x-plane.com/dev_blog/?p=350#comment-1050 Dual-core will speed up texture preload by a factor of 2. The reason is that while we still use your second core while you fly (the first runs the flight model and rendering), during pre-load of scenery (with the blue loading screen) the second core loaded textures and the first one was idle. The new code will recycle the core dedicated to the main flight loop when in a preload situation, benefiting even dual-core users.

Dataref-driven textures: not sure yet. A lot of the infrastructure work for the feature is now in place but I’m not sure which release it might make it into.

]]> By: Anonymous https:/2008/05/multi-core-texture-loading/#comment-1051 Tue, 13 May 2008 11:14:00 +0000 http://www.x-plane.com/dev_blog/?p=350#comment-1051 Great news Ben! I was looking forward to this.
What about “dataref-driven texture selection” feature? Any chances it could be supported for ver 920? Or it is not so trivial enhancement?
Robert

]]> By: Anonymous https:/2008/05/multi-core-texture-loading/#comment-1052 Tue, 13 May 2008 02:33:00 +0000 http://www.x-plane.com/dev_blog/?p=350#comment-1052 Hello,

I’m happy to hear about multithreading and using all of our HW, it’s very good news!. But I don’t see the way it can improve loading times for 2 core machines like mine. I supposed the texture loader was already loading textures using the second core. But now it makes sense buying a 4 core machine for using tools like g2xpl.

Next big thing 64 bit? 🙂

Thank you for the great work. You guys are getting flying simulation a big step forward compared to the rest.

Regards!
Quino

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