9781422272916

COMPUTER SCIENCE Games today look like the real world and creating this gaming universe takes incredible computer processing power and hardware. Computers must be able to process all the instructions coming from the mechanics layer and all the images from the aesthetics layer. Today’s games use multi-core processing, meaning simultaneous use of multiple central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs). CPUs do one calculation at a time, so even though the hardware is very fast, calculations are in sequence. GPUs are specialized processors that do calculations in parallel. Most desktop PCs today have GPUs on a graphics card to show 3D views on the monitor. In video production, engineers use high-performance GPUs to create 3D graphics for games. Developers and gamers can also use virtual hardware, meaning multiple users can even share a GPU over the internet in order to run more and better 3D graphics without the need to buy expensive hardware on their own. PHYSICS If you’ve ever played a video game that involves fire, you would’ve likely noticed how real those frames can look. Programming fire and water are two of the hardest jobs in video games. To be realistic, fire must be fast-moving and it must burn other objects. Older video games used not-so-realistic animation to represent fire, but these days, fire is all about the physics. Programmers actually take into account the vorticity of fire. During a fire, air becomes super-heated and rises rapidly, drawing the flames higher in the air right along with it. If there is wind, then the flames begin rotating, creating a fire

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GAMING