342: Unreal Engine 3

In his previous life, why were Nvidia's Graphics Cards and graphics chips so powerful? Why could they enter fields like autonomous driving chips, graphic animation, scientific computing, geology, biology, and physics simulation?

The root cause was the CUDA architecture, which allowed multiple GPU chips to perform parallel computing.

It can be said that it was precisely by relying on the CUDA architecture that Nvidia officially laid the foundation for dominating the Global graphics field.

Therefore, the CUDA architecture that Nvidia is currently developing is quite powerful, and its promotional effect in the computer field is far greater than that of the Core Processor; it is a truly revolutionary black technology.

However, while Nvidia was preparing a big move, Shuguang R&D Center was naturally also preparing a big move.

After all, Lin Chen, who came from his previous life, naturally knew what Nvidia was up to, so Shuguang R&D Center also set its sights on the CUDA architecture.

However, what Shuguang R&D Center wanted to do was not to directly copy Nvidia's CUDA architecture, but to develop a brand-new GPU parallel computing architecture that absorbed the design concepts and experience from his previous life.

After all, Nvidia has already started the project to develop the CUDA architecture, and copying it now would definitely infringe upon their patents.

Of course, according to history, the official release date of their CUDA architecture was in 2006, two years later. At this time, they had just started the project, so it seemed like nothing for Shuguang Technology to copy it.

However, if patent disputes can be avoided, they should still be avoided, and Lin Chen, who came from his previous life, had no need to copy it.

Because the CUDA architecture is not static; although it bears the name CUDA architecture, it has actually been evolving.

Therefore, there are naturally significant differences between the CUDA architecture released in 2006 and the CUDA architecture of 2023.

So, Lin Chen directly copied the 2023 CUDA architecture design concept and then used it to develop a brand-new GPU parallel computing architecture with independent intellectual property rights.

Lin Chen believes that when the Shuguang Graphics Card, adopting the “2023 version CUDA architecture,” is released, it will surely cause a sensation Global!

However, the Shuguang Graphics Card's release obviously also requires a certain amount of time, as the Shuguang Graphics Card has only recently started its development project.

Even with Lin Chen's personal involvement and the power of the mountain fortress king system, it is clearly not a simple matter to truly bring it to fruition.

...

And so time passed, and in the blink of an eye, it was August 5, 2004.

On this day, Shuguang Technology, which had been silent for more than half a month, once again made a move that caused an uproar in the Global technology circle.

On this day, Shuguang R&D Center announced the acquisition of Epic for 55 million US dollars, officially taking over the Unreal Engine!

Of course, if Shuguang R&D Center had only acquired Epic, the actual disturbance caused would not have been too great.

After all, although Unreal Engine was very famous in this era, it had not yet reached the strength and status it held in the gaming industry in his previous life.

What truly caused a sensation were the several major moves made by Shuguang R&D Center after acquiring Epic.

The first move was that Shuguang R&D Center announced that it would rename Epic to Unreal Engine Company.

As for the second major move, Shuguang R&D Center directly released the Unreal 3 Game Engine developer toolkit online and announced that the Unreal 3 Game Engine would be available for limited free use!

From then on, any individual, game development company, school, research institution, etc., could freely download the Unreal 3 Game Engine developer toolkit from the internet.

They could then study, learn, develop games, and even make minor modifications to the engine to develop games with their own unique styles and gameplay!

Of course, the reason it was limited free and not completely permanently free was that Unreal Engine Company also needed to make money.

Unreal Engine Company, controlled by Shuguang R&D Center, was like the previous Epic; all games developed based on the Unreal Engine that earned more than 1 million US dollars in profit had to pay Unreal Engine Company a 1% profit share.

However, Unreal Engine Company, controlled by Shuguang R&D Center, was much more benevolent than the previous Epic.

The previous Epic's Unreal Engine profit share was 5%, but now that Shuguang Technology has acquired Epic, the Unreal Engine's profit share is only 1%, which is a full 4% less!

When this news spread, game companies and individual developers around the Global naturally went crazy upon hearing it.

Companies and individual developers who had already adopted other game engines were quite regretful, those who had already adopted Unreal 3 Game Engine were ecstatic, and companies and individual developers who were preparing to develop games all focused on the Unreal 3 Game Engine.

After all, although the Unreal 3 Game Engine had only been released for a few months, its power was evident to them; they knew it was an extremely excellent 3D game engine.

And indeed, the Unreal 3 Game Engine absorbed the advantages of the previous two generations of Unreal Engine and other game engines.

It added features such as gamma correction and rendering, and techniques like per-pixel lighting became vertex lighting, and so on.

It can be said that the game quality and functions of the Unreal 3 Game Engine have undergone earth-shattering changes compared to before!

Famous games from his previous life, such as “Unreal Tournament 3,” “Gears of War,” “Splinter Cell: Double Agent,” “Mass Effect,” “BioShock,” “Batman: Arkham”... and other games.

They were all developed using the Unreal 3 Game Engine, which shows how outstanding and powerful the Unreal 3 Game Engine is.

Of course, in addition to lowering the game engine's profit share, Shuguang R&D Center actually had another major move.

But this major move was not disclosed to the public; instead, it was hidden, with a blade aimed at the Microsoft-Intel alliance.

This hidden major move was that Shuguang R&D Center would successively inject 40 million US dollars into Unreal Engine Company over the next year.

The bulk of this 40 million US dollars would be used to establish an Unreal 3 Game Engine development team in Daxia, with the total number of people in Daxia expected to reach over 1,000!

The main task of these more than 1,000 people would be to further optimize and improve the Unreal 3 Game Engine.

They would transform the Unreal 3 Engine into a powerful “what you see is what you get” game development engine, significantly increasing the speed and efficiency of game development.

In addition, the vast majority of these more than 1,000 developers would be tasked with developing 3D models of various styles for game characters, buildings, environments, etc., greatly enriching the Unreal 3D Model Library.

They would strive to complete 99% of a game's 3D modeling tasks in advance, saving game development companies and individual developers a huge amount of 3D modeling work.

It can be said that once this plan is completed, game developers will no longer have to repeatedly develop 3D models for characters, environments, buildings, etc.

At that time, game developers will only need to directly copy and paste from the Unreal 3D Model Library and then place the models in suitable terrain.

Although the consequence of this would be a serious homogenization of games, what is the most important thing in a game? (End of this chapter)