Cloud -> Render Cloud -> User Feedback -> Jules Urbach Video

[sol...@gmail.com]

My first post to the Cloud Computing Group, hope you enjoy it.

I spent 5 years at Raytheon prior to joining AMD where I was involved
in a number of HPC initiatives including GRD, now Grid Engine as we
sold it to SUN. A few months ago when AMD, where I have been for 6
years, began to talk about the Render Cloud it rekindled old memories
and I wrote my inaugural BLOG on the future of the Cloud and
integrating the notion of the Render Cloud, focused on the client
implications. I am heavily involved with the enthusiast PC community
and I took these concepts to that community to hear about their
thoughts. Then, fortuitously, Jules Urbach, CEO of OTOY, was at SXSW
and a blogger named Paul Mooney was standing next to us. So I was able
to take the questions that I had been fielding online with the
enthusiast community and spontaneously blurt them out strait at Jules
for a great discussion on some of the more obscure issues pertaining
to Cloud based Rendering.

My live interview with Jules taped by Paul Mooney on Neuronspark:
http://neuronspark.com/videos/rendering-in-the-cloud/

The original BLOG on Cloud Computing and the Render Cloud:
http://links.amd.com/9prl

One user feedback thread on xtremesystems:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=220778

And for the uninitiated there are a bunch of very cool Otoy demos out
there and this is one of them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nydW9XUA5VQ

Simon Solotko
Senior Manager, Advanced Marketing, AMD
Twitter: SOLOTKO
Email: simon....@amd.com

[Paulo Calcada]

Hello

Some time ago, one of the cloudviews.org blogger blogged about the AMD initiative on Cloud Computing. Although the post was very small, one of the questions that ACC has put was about latency.

Solotko, how is AMD dealing with this questions, which are the AMD's thoughts about the latency problems between clients and "Render Cloud"?

(http://www.cloudviews.org/2009/01/amd-plans-supercomputer-with-1000-gpus-fusion-render-cloud/).

2009/3/16 <sol...@gmail.com>

[Simon Solotko]

Paulo,

 

I asked the same question of Jules in the video in the context of one of the toughest use cases, online gaming. See his answer there. http://neuronspark.com/videos/rendering-in-the-cloud/

 

Two latency issues for gaming (again, probably the most demanding use case), upstream and down. For upstream input flow, the critical issue is the ability of a user to effectively aim and respond to extremely fast paced visual cues. I need to look at my crosshair, see a target within, press a button, and have the server know that I pressed in the instant that the target was in my sights. Today's online games already suffer upstream latency, and play at game-time rates which are faster than real time life experiences - as in Unreal Tournament 3 and other amazingly detailed, fast paced, aim-critical games.

 

The difference is that that last steps within a single cycle of the game flow, which is transforming game-world data from the server to produce visual effects and render the scene. These steps happen on the client today, and the proposal is that they could occur on the Render Cloud, be compressed to video, and decompressed by the client. The question is how much lag does rendering in the cloud vs. rendering on the client add? Input latency is an issue but it is not the critical issue - it is the time it takes to deliver the scene. On high bandwidth, low resolution clients (laptops and wifi smartphones) the problem seems much smaller, making those, in my view, lower hanging fruit. Displacing traditional PC gaming will require an experience with established client rendering and very potent client GPU's and increasingly affordable prices. So in my view, more of a challenge, but Jules who knows much more than I is bulish even on high resolution gaming.

 

Of course, AMD's innovation is in accelerated video compression, embracing and doing the code development requied for open GPGPU standard including openCL, and creating high power GPU platforms that can ultimately be deployed in server environments.

 

Simon.

 

 

 

My live interview with Jules taped by Paul Mooney on Neuronspark:
http://neuronspark.com/videos/rendering-in-the-cloud/

[Paulo Calcada]

Hello Soloko, thanks for your summary, I have done a little post about the subject, i hope that you appreciate it.

http://www.cloudviews.org/2009/03/amd-render-fusion-moving-from-the-meta-information-paradigm-to-a-pixel-information-paradigm/

Thanks..

Paulo

2009/3/17 Simon Solotko <sol...@gmail.com>