Job Posting

Job posting confirms Microsoft is working on DirectX physics
2:00 PM - June 21, 2006 by The Editors of Tom's Hardware


Extreme Tech has published a link, to Microsoft's career web site that provides some information on Microsoft's thought on physics in computer games. The posting dates back to 8 August of last year and describes a skill set of a software design engineer to become part of Microsoft's core DirectX developer team - which at this time includes only ten developers.

"Physics and real time, accurate simulation is a key part of the next generation gaming experience, bringing increased realism, greater immersion and more interesting experiences," Microsoft writes and offers a position in which the successful applicant will become "a member of the core engine team who will be primarily responsible for working closely with our Direct3D team, helping to define, develop and map optimized simulation and collision algorithms onto data structures that are optimized for the GPU."

While it is too early to speculate about Microsoft's DirectX physics plans and when such a function may be implemented - DirectX 10 will not include physics capability - it appears to be certain that the company favors a GPU-focused physics solution rather than using available resources in the main multi-core environment of a future PC system: The job requires the engineer to have "extensive experience with graphics shading languages such as HLSL is expected as well as a good understanding of modern graphics hardware and associated algorithms." Knowledge of other physics technologies such as Havok, Ageia, MathEngine, Meqon or ODE "would be ideal," Microsoft writes.

It is unclear, if the position has been filled: The general search interface does not lead to the posting anymore; however, the link provided by Extreme Tech still works.

Related article:
AMD imagines on-board physics processors, 8-core gaming platforms

Source : Tom's Hardware US

Britain Presents Powerful

Britain presents powerful new computer
LONDON, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Britain officially presented its powerful new computer Tuesday, but scientists still called for continued efforts to improve the computer's powerfulness. The computer's 60 teraflops (trillion operations per second) have been up and running since autumn 2007, but Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling marks the official start Tuesday by unveiling a plaque at Edinburgh University's Advanced Computing Facility, the BBC reported. The computer, going by the name of HECToR (high-end computing terascale resource), is four times more powerful than Britain's previous best computer HPCx, which will continue to run. However, HECToR ranks only 17th in the list of the world's most powerful computers (as measured against the popular TOP 500 list.)
According to the report, the machine will be used by up to 1,000 groups of scientists to model complex systems. Each user's proposal for time on the machine will have to go through a peer-review process.
Chemists, engineers and physicists will be lining up to use the computer to predict the properties of materials, or to study how they behave under extreme conditions.
However, the supercomputer is unlikely to change much for some of British largest consumers of computer power, including the Met Office Hadley Center for Climate Change.
HECToR will be used in collaborative work between the Hadley Center and the Natural Environment Research Council, with the details yet to be decided.
HECToR will run for six years and will be upgraded in two years to be five times more powerful than it is now.

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