High-performance server systems and the next generation of online games & B. D’Amora K. Magerlein A. Binstock A. Nanda B. Yee Developing a massively multiplayer online game which utilizes physically based simulation to provide realistic behaviors requires numerical integration functions with inherently high computational costs. This simulation, performed on the individual clients of a peer-to-peer networked game or for a client/server online game, presents challenges due to many factors, including limited computing resources at the client level and network latency in the propagation of a client’s state to other clients. Computationally intensive simulation may adversely affect performance and result in a situation in which little processing capacity is left for other aspects of the game. In this paper, we explore how a game developer who is aware of these issues might create a game for IBM’s recently announced Cell Broadband Enginee processor; we also present an example of the development of a game in which multiple human and robotic characters interact with static and dynamic objects in a virtual environment. Although our experience suggests that porting code to the Cell Broadband Engine core with minimal use of its synergistic processing elements (SPEs) should not be expected to produce significant performance gains at this time, the potential of the Cell SPEs to improve performance is considerable. We discuss performance and design and implementation decisions, with programmability issues being especially noted. INTRODUCTION The video game industry had an annual revenue of approximately $25.4B in 2004, and this is projected to increase to $54.6B by 2009, according to Price Waterhouse Coopers. 1 This figure represents a 16.5 percent compound annual growth rate. Game plat- forms (both PCs and consoles) host non-networked and multiplayer networked games. Although rev- enue from offline games has been dominant over the years, analysts’ predictions suggest that multiplayer online game sales will eventually dwarf those of traditional console PC games, with revenues ap- proaching $5.2B by 2006. 2 Ó Copyright 2006 by International Business Machines Corporation. Copying in printed form for private use is permitted without payment of royalty provided that (1) each reproduction is done without alteration and (2) the Journal reference and IBM copyright notice are included on the first page. The title and abstract, but no other portions, of this paper may be copied or distributed royalty free without further permission by computer-based and other information-service systems. Permission to republish any other portion of the paper must be obtained from the Editor. 0018-8670/06/$5.00 Ó 2006 IBM IBM SYSTEMS JOURNAL, VOL 45, NO 1, 2006 D’AMORA ET AL. 103