Performance Scaling With Cores: Introducing The SMOKE Framework

November 26th, 2008 · 1 Comment

By Orion Granatir and Ryan Shrout, Gamasutra
Utilizing the full capacity of multi-core processors requires multi-threaded applications, and developing properly threaded software is a different and more difficult task than traditional coding.

Game development is one area that has lagged behind in the progression of multi-threaded software. With a typical coding structure that involves basically one enormous while loop, games have epitomized single-threaded programs that fed off the pure speed of the processors involved in the gigahertz race. Now that we are moving in the direction of “more cores” rather than “more clocks,” game developers need to adjust their programming models and mindsets to take advantage of the hardware available to the PC and even console gaming communities.

As any modern coder knows threading can be difficult, but although initially constructing a many-threaded game engine requires a significant effort, the reward will no doubt be worthwhile and could span years into the future. (For more details, refer to “Designing a Parallel Game Engine” by Jeff Andrews on http://whatif.intel.com.)

As a manufacturer of multi-core processors, Intel obviously has an interest in promoting the proper techniques that will utilize the full horsepower of its processors. With this intent in mind, Intel developed Smoke, a dual-purpose framework and tech demo that emphasizes the advantages of multi-threaded gaming that is correctly implemented. It also shows game developers how thread management, resource sharing, and workloads can be balanced to create a highly modularized and flexible gaming engine for both today’s and tomorrow’s CPUs.

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