CPU load for AI

[Raph]

The single biggest CPU load in AIs in MMOs right now isn't the decision making, it's the pathfinding. Using A* or similar algorithms takes up the vast vast majority of the CPU cycles devoted to AI. It hasn't scaled very cleanly with Moore's Law in part because the path graphs have been getting steadily more complex themselves as the worlds grow more detailed.

I quite agree with the general point that we ought to be doing more with AI, but our ambitions far outstrip our server capacity right now. :( SWG had to be adapted from handling encounters with 20+ critters to handling encounters of around 6 because we couldn't handle the pathfinding load.

[Coleco_work]

Originally posted by Raph
The single biggest CPU load in AIs in MMOs right now isn't the decision making, it's the pathfinding.Curiously, the implication is that "how to get to where it wants to go" doesn't represent a "decision" for the MOB. And, further that even if you consider pathfinding a "decision" it isn't one that is "real" or "important."

Of course, if A-star pathfinding is CPU intensive and isn't a "decision," why would we think that a real "decision" wouldn't cost too much ... maybe because the AI about which we speak would exhibit a propensity to cheat more than any propenstity for intelligence. Ah, so that's what they mean by "artificial" intellegence.

Coleco

[Coleco_work]

Originally posted by Raph
The single biggest CPU load in AIs in MMOs right now isn't the decision making, it's the pathfinding.Curiously, the implication is that "how to get to where it wants to go" doesn't represent a "decision" for the MOB. And, further that even if you consider pathfinding a "decision" it isn't one that is "real" or "important."

Of course, if A-star pathfinding is CPU intensive and isn't a "decision," why would we think that a real "decision" wouldn't cost too much ... maybe because the AI about which we speak would exhibit a propensity to cheat more than any propenstity for intelligence. Ah, so that's what they mean by "artificial" intellegence.

Coleco

[Raph]

Originally posted by Coleco_work
Curiously, the implication is that "how to get to where it wants to go" doesn't represent a "decision" for the MOB. And, further that even if you consider pathfinding a "decision" it isn't one that is "real" or "important."

Of course, if A-star pathfinding is CPU intensive and isn't a "decision," why would we think that a real "decision" wouldn't cost too much ... maybe because the AI about which we speak would exhibit a propensity to cheat more than any propenstity for intelligence. Ah, so that's what they mean by "artificial" intellegence.

Coleco

Well, let's say instead that it is a fairly low-level decision in AI in most games. Deciding WHERE to try to pathfind to is potentially much more complicated, even though it may well take up far less CPU. When you're designing the AI for your game, odds are you take the pathfinding for granted simply because you'll probably have it nicely abstracted behind some walkTo() or pathfindTo() or moveTo() call or something.

[MahrinSkel]

Originally posted by Raph
I quite agree with the general point that we ought to be doing more with AI, but our ambitions far outstrip our server capacity right now. :( SWG had to be adapted from handling encounters with 20+ critters to handling encounters of around 6 because we couldn't handle the pathfinding load.
Meant to respond to this weeks ago but forgot: Yes, the pathfinding load is significant, but we're reaching the point where finer detail isn't neccessary. Wish has pathfinding you have to see to believe, and although it is a load, it's totally modularized and subsumed.

Of course, the amount of hardware we're throwing at Wish is obscene, you could crack encryption systems with these things. Easily 10 times the raw cycles of anything else out there.

--Dave

[Raph]

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
Meant to respond to this weeks ago but forgot: Yes, the pathfinding load is significant, but we're reaching the point where finer detail isn't neccessary. Wish has pathfinding you have to see to believe, and although it is a load, it's totally modularized and subsumed.

Of course, the amount of hardware we're throwing at Wish is obscene, you could crack encryption systems with these things. Easily 10 times the raw cycles of anything else out there.

--Dave

Well, then, no fair making the statement. :)

[Landslide]

I know nothing about programming, but I'm going to ask a question anyway ;) How is AI in MMOGs done? I know, big question, but I was just looking for a simple summary. Is there some sort of "Response Database", which is referenced after the AI uses some kind of interpretation program to process external stimuli? Or are AI systems created in a more dynamic way, whereby a proper response is autonomously generated on the spot based on one ore more external stimuli?

-Landslide