2009/01/27

Insomniac Tech Page

The Insomniac Tech (R&D) Page is a great source for PS3/performance/game-programming related information.  Even if you happen to not like their games or subscribe to their approach to SPU programming (by choice or otherwise), they've got a lot of resources related to different aspects of engine and game development.  And since they are a game studio all the information is very "practical".  I applaud their openness and willing to share information online, at GDC, etc.

Their SPU Instruction Cheat Sheet has a permanent home on my desktop.

2009/01/26

Code Generation in Synthesis

While looking for resources and ideas regarding self-modifying code I came across this Ph.D. dissertation from the early 90's "Synthesis: An Efficient Implimentation of Fundamental Operating System Services".  It actually has some pretty cool stuff in it: self-modifying code for context switches and optimization, lock-free synchronization primitives, and fine-grained (compared to normal CPU quantum) scheduling for real-time processing.  The lock-free implementation seems particularly forward-thinking given the many-core world we live in today.