Video Game Empire

"Restricted by computer performance, it is impossible for computer games to be comparable to arcade machines and home game consoles in terms of graphics and sound effects, so they can only work on the game structure. Small,

In our arcade game, players can only go through the levels in the same way according to the game process designed in advance by the programmer like a puppet. For example, in "Mario Brothers", the characters that players can choose are nothing more than the older brother in red and the younger brother in blue.

Each player wants to pass the level, the operations required are exactly the same. Therefore, many game magazines have even compiled various guides, detailing how to control the gamepad to press the buttons when the player should be on the map. This greatly limits the player's fantasy space and sense of substitution.

In contrast, computer games are more open and autonomous. First of all, the gameplay is very rich, including faction selection, race selection, occupation selection, and different occupations have different attributes and skills. This greatly enriches the playability of the game. And the openness of the game map is also very high, different players destroy a group of monsters in the same place. The former might get a two-handed sword, the latter a piece of armor. This uncertainty can greatly attract players to explore the **! "

Du Wenqiang's eyes were bloodshot. He obviously didn't rest well last night, but his spirit was still high. Facing Li Xuan, he continued to talk: "Whether it's "Genesis" or "Witchcraft", they all rely on gameplay. Win. With the continuous improvement of computer configuration, hardware will become less and less restrictive to computer games.

When the visual effects of computer games catch up with arcades and home game consoles, their advantages in playability will be fully reflected. And as global PC sales continue to climb, the potential market for computer games is also expanding rapidly! "

Li Xuan nodded in satisfaction. It is not bad that Du Wenqiang can sum up these views in one day. The carrier of computer games is computers, computer games in the early 1970s. It first appeared on the mainframe computers of various universities, and it could only be regarded as something for the entertainment of teachers and students. But with the late seventies. With the gradual formation of the personal computer industry, computer games have gradually begun to transform into commercialization.

In fact, the most popular games on personal computers are mostly text adventure games. Because today's personal computers, especially low-end computers, generally lack graphics processing capabilities. In another time and space, computer games really came to prominence in the mid-to-late 1980s, because at that time the game picture quality of personal computers finally began to gradually catch up with home game consoles.

In fact, the first graphic adventure game was launched as early as 1980. This game called "House of Mysteries" was popular with many players as soon as it was launched. So the founder couple of the game set up a company called Xue Leshan. Specializing in the production of computer games.

Domestic game fans may be relatively unfamiliar with this game company that has since disappeared in the clouds of history, but it was one of the most famous game companies in the United States in the 1960s, and the famous Blizzard was once acquired by it.

But Li Xuan was in no hurry to enter this market a few years ago, because the current computer game market is really not worth mentioning for a giant like Dongfang Game Company. Dongfang Game Company's biggest move in the field of computer games is to transcribe some arcade and game console games into computer software and sell them, and the sales performance achieved is better than most computer game companies.

Now. Li Xuan suddenly began to pay attention to the computer game industry. In addition to preparing to make arrangements in this field in advance to seize a favorable position, there is actually a bigger plan.

Back in 1981 after the r-1 architecture came out. The Oriental Research Institute did not relax for a moment, and started the follow-up r-2 architecture research and development work non-stop. Li Xuan, the butterfly, has changed the research and development history of the original AR architecture beyond recognition. If the previous r-1 can only be regarded as an enhanced version of the ar-2. The r-2 is far more than just an ar-3 in another time and space.

r-2 not only adds 4 caches like ar-3, but also based on the original 32-bit instruction set. Added 16-bit instruction set subset - b. The design of r-2 has even added pipeline technology, which greatly improves the processing capability of the chip. In another time and space, pipelining technology will not appear until the ar-7 architecture. The b subset was not added until the ar-7 architecture.

Another time and space Amou technology company, until 1995, the research and development team that developed the ar architecture, the total number of people was only fifty. As early as last year, the number of R&D personnel responsible for the r project in the Oriental Research Institute exceeded 500. The various teams involved in the research and development are located in the research and development centers of the Oriental Research Institute in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Silicon Valley, Cambridge, Taipei and other places.

With such a strong intellectual support, coupled with the help of Li Xuan's golden finger, the development process of the r architecture in this life is much faster and more effective than the miserable early encounter of ar in another time and space.

According to the project progress of the Oriental Research Institute, the first commercialized r-2 architecture processor will be officially launched in January 1984 next year. And around the r-2 architecture, the research and development of icon's next-generation personal computer ab-5 has already started in full swing, and it is estimated that it will be on sale within three months after the r-2 comes out.

This is also the advantage of Aikang over other competitors. Although the Oriental Research Institute also cooperates with other computer companies to support them in developing personal computers based on R-series processors. But Li Xuan has major interests in Aikang Company after all, so Aikang Company is naturally taken care of the most.

In the previous r-1 era, the Oriental Research Institute had few competitors that could compete with each other, and directly crushed the entire market with the two weapons of performance and price. However, the situation facing the r-2 is far from easy. After the 80286 was listed and suffered a fiasco in sales, Intel immediately adjusted its strategy, purchased the intellectual property rights of the rs project from Berkeley University, and began commercial research and development on this basis.

Although Intel does not have a golden finger like Li Xuan, its strong research and development capabilities are beyond doubt. The first commercial processor based on the rs architecture is likely to hit the market early next year as well. As one of the two major rs (reduced instruction set) architectures with the same name as the ps architecture, the Berkeley University project named directly with "rs" should not be underestimated.

In another time and space, Berkeley's rs architecture was later acquired by sn company and developed into a spar processor, making a name for itself in the enterprise processor market. But now it is Intel, which will develop sar into a high-end enterprise-class processor like the previous sn company? Or will it come up with a personal processor that competes with the r-2? Li Xuan has no way of guessing!

But no matter what, he has prepared a detailed countermeasure, which is to use product integration to defeat the opponent. If you only talk about performance, the ps architecture in the hands of the Oriental Research Institute, and the rs architecture acquired by Intel from Berkeley University, are definitely better than the r architecture. However, the actual market competition is not just a simple technical competition. There are many cases in history where the technology leader has finally succeeded in failure.

Intel, as the first company to develop microprocessors in the world, from the original 4004 to the later 8008, 8080, and 8086, the technical experience accumulated over more than ten years is very powerful. Even if the Oriental Research Institute has Li Xuan's golden finger of rebirth, there is still a big gap with the other party in terms of technology. Intel Corporation is a professional semiconductor company, but Li Xuan's Dongfang Electronics Corporation is not.

Even within the Oriental Research Institute, the processor project is only a part of all R&D directions. Microprocessors are ultimately used in computers, and success or failure depends on the sales of computers. Maybe Intel can do the best in the processor space, but it can't control the performance of the rest of the computer.

But Dongfang Group can ~www.readwn.com~ From hardware to software, Li Xuan has designed a set of combination punches for his opponent. If Intel still does not give up on the field of personal processors, what awaits Intel will be the collective fight of the entire Eastern Department.

In terms of hardware, Oriental Research Institute's research and development on sound cards and graphics cards has initially matured and will be applied to the next generation of ab-5 computers. That is to say, the internal accessories of the ab-5 will be more perfect, and the division of labor will be further defined, and the prototype of the computer of the later generations has already been formed.

However, the patents for sound cards and graphics cards are in the hands of the Oriental Research Institute, and Li Xuan will be ready to bundle it with the r-2 processor. Of course, the name of bundled sales is not good. The Oriental Research Institute will provide "1+2" ​​system solutions for major computer manufacturers.

If other manufacturers want to be on par with ab-5 in terms of hardware, it is definitely too late to develop their own dedicated discrete graphics and sound cards. The best choice is naturally to continue to cooperate with the Oriental Research Institute.

In terms of software, the newly independent Dongfang Application Software Company also continued to maintain in-depth cooperation with Dongfang Research Institute. The new version of the as-os operating system they are intensively developing will be highly compatible with the r-2 architecture. Although the rs (reduced instruction set) architecture processor has less stringent requirements for software compatibility than s (complex instruction set), it is not without problems. (To be continued..)