Game AI addon card?

[damunzy]

Can anyone besides me see this coming sometime in the future? Crazy? Maybe, but we gamers have had to put up with sub-standard AI for way too long! This way the game designers could offload the AI decision processes on a programmable addon card (like 3D is done on a GPU) - relieving the CPU to handle the non-graphic and non-AI chores. Imagine playing Civ3 versus the computer and they don't know everything about all of your cities like they currently do. Imagine downloading the "GK MOO4 AI Pack 3.0 - Hard Setting" for a really hard game or "CornMaster Civ4 FRPTW (Finally Really Play The World) AI Pack 1.5 - Make Love Not War" where the AI wants to pass 18 resolutions and then still not attack! (cheap shot - but still funny! )

Well, my fellow gamers, what think you of my idea?

 

[ainwood]

Interesting concepts.

I'm not so sure about the AI card as such, as I think it would need to be a big beasty - why not just have dual CPUs? Is there much difference? A card like this might be a step towards making PC upgrades easy for the non-technically minded though.

I do like the AI add-on pack. You would need to standardise the decision algorithms - but a nice concept

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I want one!

Lots of other tasks can be done with dedicated hardware, why not AI? And it's not just games that could benefit from such a card - imagine Micro$ofts "Clippy" showing some intelligence for a change! *rimshot*

 

[cgannon64]

Interesting idea. Maybe throw in a free basic logic circuit with the AI card? *rimshot*

Gee, everyone's a comedian in this thread.

 

[CrackedCrystal]

I don't see it happening myself. AI currently is not limited by CPU power, it is limited by programmer abilities. With the case of the graphics, it was the other way around. It is just incredibly hard to program an AI. After all, that’s why these men vs. computer chess games are such attention getters. Chess is a relatively easy game to write an AI for compared to Civ3.

EDIT: oh... and um... A preacher, rabi, and duck walk into a bar *rimshot*

 

[Crazy Eddie]

No making fun of rimshots, it's upsetting my drummer. When he get's moody it costs me a lot of money in replacement drumsticks.

 

[damunzy]

Originally posted by CrackedCrystal
I don't see it happening myself. AI currently is not limited by CPU power, it is limited by programmer abilities. With the case of the graphics, it was the other way around. It is just incredibly hard to program an AI. After all, that’s why these men vs. computer chess games are such attention getters. Chess is a relatively easy game to write an AI for compared to Civ3.

Let me get Killer in here...he had a good arguement as to how the AI is limited purposely so as to not slow the game down (read: the CPUs are powerful enough).

Remember also: The APU would be made specifically for doing AI just like the GPU is for Graphics so it would be better at it than a general purpose CPU...

 

[Nickademus72]

So funny, some mocked the OP's idea and little did they know that some ten or fifteen years earlier this idea was actually being tossed around, and I'm pretty sure a prototype card existed. Sorry this being how many years late on here but hey, the op was late as well but spot on lol.

This idea was being thrown around when cpu's didn't have cycles to waste when they were still picking up slack from gpu's and audio cards for gaming. Dev's didn't have extra cycles to waste on AI, but the card was also an attempt to advance AI in games, not just a way to offload. When cpu's started becoming more efficient, the idea was sadly dropped. Good luck googling this, I've been trying to dig up the article for years, but sadly some things are lost to time.