Comments on: 3pointD.com interviews IBM

By: Kami Harbinger

Kami Harbinger — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 07:20:08 +0000

My thoughts on Mainframes For Virtual Worlds, and realism in games.

By: Darniaq

Darniaq — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 19:21:47 +0000

Or do they mean server-side rendering, which seems unlikely and a bad idea anyway?

There’s a few companies working this actually, I think mostly because of the ability to lower the end-user system requirements and reduce reliance on specific platforms. You’d need a LOT of distributed power to handle very many different users all needing rendering from their specific point of view of course. Maybe these cell processors can do that? I have no idea.

By: Prokofy Neva

Prokofy Neva — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 03:16:17 +0000

>Does anyone at all want to do their banking in a virtual world?

Yes.

By: moo

moo — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:59:10 +0000

What I should have said about WebSphere is that it’s horrifically big and complicated. (Like a lot of “enterprise” products, I suppose).

Yes it can do some nifty things, but you’ll have to hire a full-time WebSphere wizard guy to set it all up. I’m struggling to imagine an MMO design where the benefits of that sort of thing would outweigh the huge drawbacks. MMO servers ought to be low-latency and efficient, which I don’t think anything built on top of WebSphere can really be. =)

By: Rich Bryant

Rich Bryant — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 19:14:56 +0000

Websphere is okay if you have fully asynchronous transaction model (like web selling, for example). But without major reworking, i can’t see it being effective for synchronous transfers with any kind of latency protection.

By: Trevor F. Smith

Trevor F. Smith — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 18:01:32 +0000

“Or do they mean server-side rendering…”

It seems that the machine was originally designed for CG and streaming video services, so perhaps they actually do mean server side rendering. Maybe they originally planned to push the hardware for live “TV” shows with synthespians and personal POV streaming video but with the flurry of SL media coverage they decided to change the spin and didn’t quite get it right.

By: moo

moo — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 17:21:45 +0000

The hardware things are cool. WebSphere is a giant dog. No one in their right mind would write MMO software on top of such a thing. It might be a good choice for large business-to-business solutions or something, but this sounds like clueless marketroids in IBM trying to push it as some kind of MMO middleware.

By: Wolfe

Wolfe — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:28:46 +0000

Mmm, I wouldnt mind having the ability to pay my bills from within WoW, that would save me approximately 5 minutes per month of tabbing out, starting up a browser and logging on to my banks website.

I also think there might be some interesting business related to selling hardware to people who enjoy destroying money through gambling. There are many such peopl around the world and most of them dont mind destroying money a bit here and a bit there to be able to tell their grandchildren stories about how they were around pioneering various interesting industries.

“When I was young I helped Henry Ford make the car into something everyone could get hold of. It cost a lot of good moniez but look now at all these cars and I am their proud and forgotten creator. Remember grandpa as the man who made the car when you grow up!”

By: RickR

RickR — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:21:01 +0000

It sounds to me like it’s possible that there’s something really really cool in IBM’s back room, but the guys answering the questions just don’t have the technical underpinning to truly explain it properly without a lot of buzzwords.
Or not.

By: Juha

Juha — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:52:06 +0000

I’m not clear on to what degree you are expected to write your own virtual world atop all this, or whether IBM is planning on creating the server software too.

IBM’s server middleware software, WebSphere, is the plumbing mentioned in the article and will dictate much of the server’s architecture and implementation language. The rest (the details of the virtual environment) is probably left to the customers to create given IBM’s expectation to work with multiple clients. IMO, they’re poking around seeing if there’s a vertical in the making here for future mainframe sales. Banking connection comes quite naturally given it’s IBM we are talking about.