Multi-user Extensible Virtual Worlds

Increasing complexity of objects and interactions with increasing world size, users, numbers of

objects and types of interactions.

Sheldon Brown, Director of Center for Next Generation Digital Media, UCSD

Daniel Tracy, Programmer, Experimental Game Lab

Erik Hill, Programmer, Experimental Game Lab

Kristen Kho, Programmer, Experimental Game Lab

Clients

Many,

Heterogenous,

Internet connected

Server

10gb ethernet to internet

30gb to heterogenous bladeservers

Cell and multicore x86

Central server manages world state changes

Number of clients and amount of activity determines world size and shape

City road schemes are computed for each player when they enter a new city, using Hybrid multicore compute accelerators

Each player has several views of the world:

•Partial view of one city

•Total view of one city

•Partial view of two cities

•View of entire globe

Within a city are several thousand objects. The dynamics of these objects are computed on the best available resource, balancing computability and coherency and alleviating world Sharding.

Current schemes using compute clusters break virtual worlds into small “shards” which have a few dozen interacting objects. Compute systems with large amounts of coherent addressable memory alleviate cluster node jumping and can create worlds with several orders of higher level data complexity. Tens of thousands of entities vs. dozens per shard. Takes advantage of techniques hybrid compute techniques for richer object dynamics.

Communications between server and Client operations are all single directional and asynchronous

Components have individual tolerance levels for discoherency and latency.

Metrics characterize the performance of the components of the system with computation and network latency.

Each node is assigned a virtual cpu on the server. Server steps in gracefully when clients fail to meet criteria.

General communication consists of several dozen to several hundred events at 20 – 60 fps. 36 bytes per event. Dozens to hundreds to thousands of client connections.

Server components may be located anywhere in system

Server services can run locally, on peers or on server to keep responsiveness high. Coherency with overall system is pursued, managed by centralized server.

• Milestones Year 1 and 2

– Utilize hybrid computing environment for serving Multi-user Extensible Virtual Worlds

– Implement compute acceleration schemes for hybrid multicore systems on server side and client side.

– Dynamically determine allowable dis-coherancy in world model, with methods for resolving – Allows for dynamic computation model.

– Provide for extremely large, complex and dynamic virtual worlds – several orders of magnitude beyond existing virtual world systems.

• Milestones Year 1 and 2

– Utilize hybrid computing environment for serving Multi-user Extensible Virtual Worlds

– Implement compute acceleration schemes for hybrid multicore systems on server side and client side.

– Dynamically determine allowable dis-coherancy in world model, with methods for resolving – Allows for dynamic computation model.

– Provide for extremely large, complex and dynamic virtual worlds – several orders of magnitude beyond existing virtual world systems.

Multi-user Extensible Virtual Worlds

Multi-user Extensible Virtual Worlds

• Deliverables Year 1 and 2– Evaluate benefits and liabilities of server side schemes

such as OpenSIM and Darkstar.– Develop asset management system for utilizing

common assets for lower fidelity/higher performance virtual worlds and high fidelity/low performance digital cinema.

– Devise schema for utilizing virtual worlds as generators of cinematic data

• Utilize the unpredictable, multifold behaviors of communities of users to create new data and new relationships between data for other uses. Digital Cinema as an example application.

• Social interactions help drive the investigations of complex data.

• Virtual worlds offer flexible methods for creating digital cinema through a reutilization of derived assets and behavioral data.

• Deliverables Year 1 and 2– Evaluate benefits and liabilities of server side schemes

such as OpenSIM and Darkstar.– Develop asset management system for utilizing

common assets for lower fidelity/higher performance virtual worlds and high fidelity/low performance digital cinema.

– Devise schema for utilizing virtual worlds as generators of cinematic data

• Utilize the unpredictable, multifold behaviors of communities of users to create new data and new relationships between data for other uses. Digital Cinema as an example application.

• Social interactions help drive the investigations of complex data.

• Virtual worlds offer flexible methods for creating digital cinema through a reutilization of derived assets and behavioral data.

Multi-user Extensible Virtual Worlds

Multi-user Extensible Virtual Worlds