01-25-2021, 08:48 AM | #11 |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: Complexity for computers and the real world
The definition of hardware Complexity suggests that it's a poor match to "raw power" but a decent fit to number of simultaneous sessions – that's what the game appears to mean by how much software a computer can run at once. Yes, that's bizarre for computers mostly being used by lone adventurers. It fits with a centralized client-server model that might've been common in the 80s and earlier, but not so much today. For that matter, so does the whole "buy the 'terminal' separately" approach in the rules.
The definition of software Complexity looks like it has something to do with demands on memory or processors. It can be forced to work with the previous definition, but that isn't always a straight-up match. So . . . the "right" question for hardware isn't "How fast?" or "How much memory?", but "How capable of virtualization?" If a computer can support many users on virtual machines, it gets a high Complexity; that's the only way to explain why it should scale up with the size of a mainframe, given that bigger mainframes mostly just support more users. There should probably be a completely different Speed Rating or whatever for execution time, and that's the thing that goes up sharply enough over time to merit a base-10 log scale. I mean, I just bought a computer that would strain to support multiple users running even simple software, but that can blitz through calculations – especially for rendering graphics – that would've flattened the old mainframes I use to code on that were quite able to support several hundred simultaneous sessions. There's should also probably be some sort of Capacity Rating, though this may coincide with Complexity for single-user machines. It looks to me as if Complexity was an oversimplification, and that computers and software should properly have 2-4 stats, not just a single, unified one. Then you could say things like old mainframes had {Users, Speed, Capacity per User} in the {7, 1, 1} range on some log scale, while modern PCs have {1, 7, 3} or whatever. Please don't take those numbers literally!
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01-25-2021, 09:35 AM | #12 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Complexity for computers and the real world
Not so. It uses the same instruction set as the processors in iPads and iPhones, but it's a very different implementation, because it's designed to be capable of using far more energy.
Intel sell processors that are slower and use less power than the ones they sell for desktops and servers. They just aren't very popular or widely known.
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01-25-2021, 09:41 AM | #13 | |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: Complexity for computers and the real world
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For example, take Transhuman Space. When it was published, TL9 technology by 2020 was a possibility, if somewhat optimistic. By 2021 though, the technological progression proved to be much too rapid, so the setting probably needs to be pushed forward 50 years, to 2150 AD, to get the same level of changes. After all, laser launch technology is still in its infancy, there is no AIDS vaccine, and teletourism on Mars has not left the drawing board. |
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01-25-2021, 09:47 AM | #14 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Re: Complexity for computers and the real world
But there is a difference. Look at the table on p. 37! 1980 you have early VLSI, which gives -2 to Complexity. 2010 you have advanced VLSI, which gives +2 Complexity. That's a difference of four magnitudes!
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01-25-2021, 09:50 AM | #15 | |
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Kentucky, USA
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Re: Complexity for computers and the real world
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Making Cycle Speed logarithmic would be good, maybe with a bonus program CS based on unused Capacity. The only Complexity 2 program running on a Capacity 3 machine would be screaming fast compared to one with a full Capacity. Capacity would be a good abstraction of memory, disk space, CPU speed, etc. and any mention of exact program size could be dropped. The only thing I can think of beyond that that would matter to adventurers would be power requirements.
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01-25-2021, 10:14 AM | #16 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Complexity for computers and the real world
When I started work on GURPS High-Tech: Electricity and Electronics, there had been a huge amount of discussion of Complexity scores for computers at various TLs, and what they meant, and how well or poorly they fit real world developments in computer technology. So I decided this was an opportunity to reduce the gap. This had to be an alternate system, as it had multiple boosts to complexity over the 40 years (at that point) of TL8, which would render the entire treatment in GURPS Ultra-Tech incompatible; in fact I explicitly discussed this in E&E, and suggested different ways to address it, from assuming that computer progress was about to stop to requiring a much higher Complexity to emulate a human nervous system.
The basic table of Complexity in E&E is, if I recall, roughly for mid-TL8, circa 1990. It says that a computer of this size is Complexity 1 and a computer of this size is Complexity 5 and so on. But attached to it is a table of modifiers for the processor technology, from mechanical through vacuum tube and transistor up to the extremely high-end VLSI we have now. You have to apply those modifiers to the values in the basic table. That accommodates, for example, the fact that the first high-end computer animation was done in the early 1980s on supercomputers, but by the turn of the century it was being done on much smaller workstations. As for dimensions of performance, I suggest that for speed, you look at the processor technology; in fact, I gave speed values for processors from mechanical and electromechanical on up. This is in principle independent of Complexity, though it coordinates with size, and the sheer size of processors limits the Complexity you can get at a given weight. But Complexity as such isn't a measure of speed. It's a measure of how much information the computer can have in memory, which is a measure of both "how big a program" and "how many programs at once". (For classic von Neumann architecture machines, even though it appears that the computer is running several or many programs at once, in fact it's running one at a time, but hopping back and forth between them very fast. Things get more interesting with parallel and distributed systems.) It looks as if computers haven't gained in complexity since, say, 2000. But that's if you look at consumer systems running Word or Excel or various browsers. Those really don't need any more complexity; they respond to it by getting overloaded with features. But where complexity still makes a difference is, on one hand, in a computer's ability to handle things like audio, radio, or video, and on the other, in its ability to run incredible simulations like a single cortical column in a mammalian brain. The latter are intrinsically more complex, whereas word processing just is intrinsically rather simple and doesn't actually draw on a current desktop's full capabilities.
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01-25-2021, 12:31 PM | #17 | ||||
On Notice
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
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Re: Complexity for computers and the real world
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Even with Computer-Design Options you can tweak things. Apple's M1 is Fast (+1) with Advanced VLSI (+1) and the developer prototype used an A12x from the iPad Pro (Complexity 2). Therefore the entry level M1 Macs are Complexity 4. Quote:
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01-25-2021, 12:49 PM | #18 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Complexity for computers and the real world
Quote:
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01-25-2021, 03:27 PM | #19 | |
On Notice
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
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Re: Complexity for computers and the real world
Quote:
More over Apple actually down clocks the M1 to only 10 watts: "At just 10 watts (the thermal envelope of a MacBook Air), M1 delivers up to 2x the CPU performance of the PC chip." So as you pointed out you have a chip down clocked to 10 watts out performing a 15 watt chip. Hardly "uses much more power" when in reality no matter how you slice it the M1 uses less.
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01-25-2021, 04:59 PM | #20 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Complexity for computers and the real world
The basic use of complexity is for determining how many programs a computer can run. Now, newer computers can run more simultaneous applications, but not by nearly as much as the amount of memory and CPU power has increased, because newer versions of software are just plain bigger than older.
Consider text editors. The first versions of 'vi' (a text editor still used today) had difficulty running on a PDP 11/70, with 4 megabytes of ram, so it probably took up 2mb or so. A modern vi on a blank document is 11MB. Microsoft word, with a blank document, loads to a size of 64MB. Of course, a modern computer can run hundreds of instances, but not by as much as hardware has improved. Some of this is expansion in capacity. Some of this is changes in programming style and tools; as computers become more powerful, it simply doesn't make economic sense to optimize them for the limitations of less developed computers (spending an engineer-week to save a megabyte on a program might have been worthwhile in 1979; in 2020, unless you're running thousands of instances, it isn't). |
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