The driving force of the PC industry? You, the Gamer.

I gotta tell you, sometimes even I take for granted that this relatively modest PC standing quietly beside my desk, diligently rendering keystrokes into words in this blog post, is in fact a computational beast the kind of which could not have been imagined not very long ago. But when I think about it, I strongly believe that it is you, the gamer, who was and continues to be the driving force behind this amazing evolution.

(okay, if you want to be really precise, it is you and the porn industry, but I figured that a blog entry titled “In Honor of the Gamer and the Porn Industry” would not be as well received in certain quarters)

Super-computing power under your desk

Seriously though, isn’t it mind-blowing that the CPU used in the Space Shuttle program was at 480,000 instructions per second, and the thing you have under the hood of your trusty PC is most likely hundreds of thousands, if not millions times faster? And the graphics processor, that’s a whole separate story (I highly recommend this terrific review if you have some extra time). If you’re old enough to remember (Trident, Cirrus Logic – rings a bell?), a video card in the early 90’s was a boring implement with very few choices. Today’s GPUs are so blazing fast that some of the highest performing super-computers are GPU-based.

So how is it that the kind of computing power that would have been considered the domain of highly specialized super-computing tasks, is now widely accessible at the consumer level, both in packaging and in price? Whom do we need to thank for this unbelievable progress?

Thank you, gamers

Yes, I do believe very strongly that it is the gamers and the industry catering to the gamers’ wishes, aspirations, and expectations that need to be thanked for this. This is the ecosystem that has been making this dizzying computing arms race possible. This is the reason that our GPUs are now able to render a gaming scene at 30 times per second, processing hundreds of thousands of triangles and millions of pixels in milliseconds, evaluating the physics of rigid and even soft bodies in between the frames, calculating light, shadows, sounds, and everything else that eventually comes together to become an awesome gaming experience.

So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving a bunch of you turkey-eaters just celebrated – thanks, you guys. Keep up the good work.

Doing our part

Our entire team here on the Hereticle production line, including Cat the Production Manager, believes that the gaming world deserves our utmost attention and our best effort. Just as there’re folks out there who work hard to bring you cool gadgets and accessories like gaming mice and keyboards, we are working on our contribution to making the gaming world even more varied and interesting. That is why we’re bringing our Hereticle to you, our Gamer.

Yup, working hard there. Doing some field quality control, by the looks of it. That’ll do, Cat. That’ll do.