Stardock Magazine: April 2019

Welcome to Stardock Magazine! In this issue, we discuss Google Stadia, Siege of Centauri Early Access, and more. Stardock Magazine April 2019 By Brad Wardell, CEO (@draginol) Topics: • [Editorial](#editorial) • [DeskScapes 10](#deskscapes) • [Siege of Centauri](#siege) • [Stardock Survey](#survey) Join the discussion [here](=/aHR0cHM6Ly9mb3J1bXMuc3RhcmRvY2submV0LzQ5NDE2MS9zdGFyZG9jay1hcHJpbC0yMDE5LWRpc2N1c3Npb24-dXRtX3NvdXJjZT1zZG1hZyZ1dG1fbWVkaXVtPWVtYWlsJnV0bV9jb250ZW50PWpvaW4tZGlzY3Vzc2lvbi10eHQmdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPXNkbWFnLWFwcjIwMTkmdXRtX3Rlcm09c2RtYWctYXByMjAxOS0yMjUzNQ==) Also, join us on [Discord](=/aHR0cHM6Ly9kaXNjb3JkLmdnL3N0YXJkb2NrP3V0bV9zb3VyY2U9c2RtYWcmdXRtX21lZGl1bT1lbWFpbCZ1dG1fY29udGVudD1kaXNjb3JkLXR4dCZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249c2RtYWctYXByMjAxOSZ1dG1fdGVybT1zZG1hZy1hcHIyMDE5LTIyNTM1) [Editorial] by Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock I just got back from GDC 2019. This year the show was dominated by technologies that are slowly leading us to the idea of a personal computing cloud. The idea here is that you will have computing power X available to you through your various devices, and that computing power will let you do Y. Let's break down this personal computing cloud future based on what was actually shown and what it means. Google Stadia: Google® announced its data center based console called Stadia™. The idea here is that the data center is the console. They can set what is, as a practical matter, a fairly arbitrary hardware configuration as being "the console." That's because it's actually all being done on a virtual machine on servers at the data center. The game runs at the data center and is then streamed to the user at whatever resolution the user desires. It has no problem doing, for instance, 1080p at 60 frames per second. The only limitations involve the quality of your Internet connection. Of course, that's the rub right? My ping to Google.com is 9ms. That's over 100 times per second. If I don't have a bandwidth cap, then being able to instantly play any game I want on any screen I have (i.e. this would run on a $30 Chromecast hooked to your HDMI port on a cheap monitor), is totally possible. So what about latency? Again, depends on your connection. At 10ms, you're not going to see any. But what about 30ms? 60ms? That's a good question. For the types of games I like - strategy and RPG - I'm in good shape. But an action game? That might be an issue. It's easy for us to forget how fast things are changing. When Stardock started doing digital distribution, we had plenty of people saying that they would never choose to download their software over having it on disk (or CD) because it would take "forever" to download on their 56k modem, or they didn't like the idea of not owning a physical copy. In a few years, when 5G is ubiquitous and ping times are less than 5ms for most people, streaming could become pretty compelling. As for myself, I would say that I like the idea of having more ways to play games. There are lots of games I watch people play on YouTube that I would love to be able to press a button and give them a try. It just depends on the cost and experience. AMD: AMD™ is doing some really interesting things. They have a new GPU technology architecture called "Navi®." Their goal is to make GPUs based on this architecture that can be both faster than anything else out there, and less expensive, depending on the configuration. Based on what I saw, they are well on their way. Even more interesting, however, is the move to virtualized multi-GPU. Both AMD and NVIDIA® are moving this way and it's easy to see why. First, obviously, it will encourage more game developers to support multiple GPUs. It is, ironically, often easier to develop a game that runs faster by making use of multiple GPUs than taking full advantage of a single GPU. Thus, imagine a future where a given game can do amazing things simply because it supports say, 8 GPUs, and a future Navi based card is able to represent itself to that game as 8 GPUs. What's driving both AMD and NVIDIA is the rapid evolution of both Vulkan® and DirectX® 12, both of which embrace massive parallelism. As many readers know, our hardware hit a brick wall long ago when it comes to increasing single CPU (single core) performance. We have long since stopped talking about Mhz, but it's taken awhile for a new paradigm to mature -- parallelism. Human developers are still not great at doing this, but many developers, including Stardock, are working on technologies that automate parallel task graphing so that our software does a lot more things at once. While individual jobs may actually be slower, we're doing so many more of them at once that the end result is a lot faster. Platform Wars: It's hard not to notice that the games market is starting to return to a multi-source model again. For the last ten years or so, PC gamers pretty much relied on just Steam® for all their games. Now, there's Epic™, Discord™, EA™ Origin, and others vying for your game dollars. It's too early for me to give much of an opinion on this. We are big fans of Steam and Discord, but also like the idea of competition. On the other hand, as developers with finite resources, we aren't in love with each service having their own technology stack that has to be supported. One of the reasons we love Humble Bundle is that we just provide them with Steam keys. There's a big difference between a store and a platform. A platform has an SDK that handles multiplayer and friends and achievements, and Steamworks now sets the minimum standard that gamers expect. Supporting all these platforms is a pretty difficult challenge. [DeskScapes 10] Stardock's popular animated wallpaper program, DeskScapes™, is about close to release. We recently released beta 2, which adds support for Fences® blur effects, enhanced video codec support, and random wallpaper selection. [DeskScapes](=/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc3RhcmRvY2suY29tL3Byb2R1Y3RzL2Rlc2tzY2FwZXMvZGVza3NjYXBlczEwL3NjcmVlbnNob3RzL2RzMTBfYmV0YTJfRGFya01vZGUucG5nP3V0bV9zb3VyY2U9c2RtYWcmdXRtX21lZGl1bT1lbWFpbCZ1dG1fY29udGVudD1kZXNrc2NhcGVzLWltZyZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249c2RtYWctYXByMjAxOSZ1dG1fdGVybT1zZG1hZy1hcHIyMDE5LTIyNTM1) Right now, the beta is only available for [Object Desktop](=/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc3RhcmRvY2suY29tL3Byb2R1Y3RzL29kbnQvP3V0bV9zb3VyY2U9c2RtYWcmdXRtX21lZGl1bT1lbWFpbCZ1dG1fY29udGVudD1vZG50LXR4dDEmdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPXNkbWFnLWFwcjIwMTkmdXRtX3Rlcm09c2RtYWctYXByMjAxOS0yMjUzNQ==)™ users. One of the coolest new features is the seamless [WinCustomize.com](=/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cud2luY3VzdG9taXplLmNvbS8-dXRtX3NvdXJjZT1zZG1hZyZ1dG1fbWVkaXVtPWVtYWlsJnV0bV9jb250ZW50PXdpbmN1c3RvbWl6ZS10eHQmdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPXNkbWFnLWFwcjIwMTkmdXRtX3Rlcm09c2RtYWctYXByMjAxOS0yMjUzNQ==) integration, which turns one of the most popular websites for desktop backgrounds and animated wallpapers into your own personal library. [Object Desktop](=/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc3RhcmRvY2suY29tL3Byb2R1Y3RzL29kbnQvP3V0bV9zb3VyY2U9c2RtYWcmdXRtX21lZGl1bT1lbWFpbCZ1dG1fY29udGVudD1vZG50LXR4dDImdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPXNkbWFnLWFwcjIwMTkmdXRtX3Rlcm09c2RtYWctYXByMjAxOS0yMjUzNQ==) is currently on sale for $29.99 and includes DeskScapes, Fences, Multiplicity®, Start10™, Groupy™, WindowBlinds™, WindowFX™, and more. [>> Object Desktop](=/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc3RhcmRvY2suY29tL3Byb2R1Y3RzL29kbnQvP3V0bV9zb3VyY2U9c2RtYWcmdXRtX21lZGl1bT1lbWFpbCZ1dG1fY29udGVudD1vZG50LXR4dDMmdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPXNkbWFnLWFwcjIwMTkmdXRtX3Rlcm09c2RtYWctYXByMjAxOS0yMjUzNQ==) [Siege of Centauri] Many of us here love tower defense games. If you're not familiar with the genre, here is the basic idea: You have a base and enemies are trying to destroy it. You, the player, are in charge of defending the base by placing defensive structures (towers) in the path of the enemy to stop them. Different enemies have different strengths and weaknesses thus part of the strategy is figuring out the right tower at the right place at the right time. Stardock is about half-way done with its own take on tower defense. It's called [Siege of Centuari](=/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc3RhcmRvY2suY29tL2dhbWVzL3NpZWdlb2ZjZW50YXVyaS8-dXRtX3NvdXJjZT1zZG1hZyZ1dG1fbWVkaXVtPWVtYWlsJnV0bV9jb250ZW50PXNpZWdlLXR4dDEmdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPXNkbWFnLWFwcjIwMTkmdXRtX3Rlcm09c2RtYWctYXByMjAxOS0yMjUzNQ==)™ and takes place in the Ashes of the Singularity™ universe. As many of you know, Stardock has always pioneered parallel computing going all the way back to OS/2. Our new game engine will use all your CPU cores which, in turn, lets us have massive numbers of enemies. Moreover, it lets us do some interesting things like have actual terrain and physics come into play when deciding where to place your defenses. We are currently running an early experience program for it. Pick it up for $10 and help us make the ultimate tower defense game! [>> Siege of Centuari](=/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc3RhcmRvY2suY29tL2dhbWVzL3NpZWdlb2ZjZW50YXVyaS8-dXRtX3NvdXJjZT1zZG1hZyZ1dG1fbWVkaXVtPWVtYWlsJnV0bV9jb250ZW50PXNpZWdlLXR4dDImdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPXNkbWFnLWFwcjIwMTkmdXRtX3Rlcm09c2RtYWctYXByMjAxOS0yMjUzNQ==) [Stardock Survey] One of the most important things to us here at Stardock is customer feedback. We've released a [feedback survey](=/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc3VydmV5bW9ua2V5LmNvbS9yL0g5ODZCM0c-dXRtX3NvdXJjZT1zZG1hZyZ1dG1fbWVkaXVtPWVtYWlsJnV0bV9jb250ZW50PXN1cnZleS10eHQxJnV0bV9jYW1wYWlnbj1zZG1hZy1hcHIyMDE5JnV0bV90ZXJtPXNkbWFnLWFwcjIwMTktMjI1MzU=) for our customers that will provide you with a 25% off coupon to use in our store. Thanks for all of your support, it continues to help us provide the best game and software experience possible. 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AMD is a trademark of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. NVIDIA is a registered trademark of NVIDIA Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Navi is a registered trademark of Interactiv Corporation. Vulkan is a registered trademark of the Khronos Group Inc. DirectX is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Epic is a trademark of Epic Systems Corporation. Steam and Steamworks are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Valve Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Discord is a trademark of Discord Inc. EA is a trademark of Electronic Arts Inc. All rights reserved. All other trademarks and copyrights are the properties of their respective owners.