"Intel’s integrated graphics just don't work. I don't think they will ever work."

TG Daily: Well, we do have a fancy new operating system on the PC, which is actually heavily promoted as a gaming platform. What are your thoughts about Windows Vista?

Sweeney: I really don't know why they kept the 32-bit version of Vista. I was surprised when they decided to keep the 32-bit version, I expected that they would push the 64-bit version exclusively. It would have been the perfect time for that.


TG Daily: Considering that almost all the computers that can run Vista in fact support the x86-64extensions, that choice belongs to The Twilight Zone of the IT industry.

Sweeney: Let's be clear with it. The switch to exclusively 64-bit would clean up all the legacy viruses and spyware programs that have been plaguing us for years. The requirement for much more system memory cannot be an excuse, because most owners of 64-bit processors have at least 1 GB of system memory installed.


TG Daily: It would have been a soft switch when we compare it to the Mac, right? Almost all of our 32-bit software for Windows would continue to perform as it used to?

Sweeney: Yes, we would have liked something like that to happen. In terms of Apple, there’s a new PC in your future. In the case of Vista that would have gone 64-bit only, you would have ended up with five year old computers that still would have been able to run the 64-bit operating system.


TG Daily: Let’s go back to the gaming PC. What would you think if everyone would pursue a sort of an ease-of-use approach? For instance, in last two years, there were efforts to bring external graphics to life. It was supposed to be a compact box that would have a powerful discrete card inside. But in the end, it turned out that Vista's driver mode (LDDM) was incompatible with that.

Sweeney: External graphics?

Asus external graphics solution

TG Daily: A year ago, the PCI-SIG certified the PCI External standard, which enabled the conventional PCI slot to extend through several different cables. There were several Taiwanese companies such as Asus and MSI that demonstrated products based on different cards. In the end, you simply needed to plug the external box into a notebook or a desktop. Prototypes were using the ExpressCard interface.

Sweeney: Oh... that's cool. Actually, this would be a really good idea. We always joked that there will come a day when you won't be plugging a graphics card into a computer, but you would connect the computer into an Nvidia box, because they were quite loud and using a lot of power. But this idea would be really good. I didn't know there was actually a development in that area. Sadly, this would not solve a problem that we have today, and that is the fact that every PC should have a decent graphics card. A PC should be an out-of-the-box workable gaming platform.


TG Daily: What about notebooks?

Sweeney: For notebooks this could be a really good solution. There is no room to put a fast GPU into that compact form.

TG Daily: With that much background and knowledge about what PCs make sense and which do not, I’d be interested to learn what PC you are using.

Sweeney: My work computers are Dell workstations. Currently, I have a dual-CPU setup, dual-quad cores for a total of eight cores, and 16 GB of memory. We at Epic tend to go to the high-end of things. Until recently, we used to buy high-end consumer PCs, simply because they tend to deliver the best performance. However, as time goes by, we constantly run into stability problems with CPUs and graphics, so we decided to switch to workstations. We just need very, very stable computers and they perform very well.


TG Daily: So, you aren’t really after the highest benchmark numbers obviously.

Sweeney: Part of the problem we see with these systems is that that they are ultra-fast, but often we see our PCs running under full load for 16 hours a day on various projects. We are constantly loading the systems, for instance using Radiosity. These computing tasks are extremely hardware extensive. Most of the high-end systems we worked on are just not engineered to support that.


TG Daily: What are your thoughts on the future of the PC as a gaming platform? Is scalability the future – we hear AMD talking about Spider and Nvidia is selling Triple SLI that will keep us upgrading over the next several years. Or did the industry lose its focus?

Sweeney: PC gaming is in a weird position right now. Now, 60% of PCs on the market don't have a workable graphics processor at all. All the Intel integrated graphics are still incapable of running any modern games. So you really have to buy a PC knowing that you're going to play games in order to avoid being stuck with integrated graphics. This is unfortunate, and this is one of main reasons behind the decline of the PC as a gaming platform. That really has endangered high-end PC game sales. In the past, if you bought a game, it would at least work. It might not have been a great experience, but it would always work.  


TG Daily: Can that scenario change?

Sweeney: Yes, actually it might. If you look into the past, CPU makers are learning more and more how to take advantage of GPU-like architectures. Internally, they accept larger data and they have wider vector units: CPUs went from a single-threaded product to multiple cores. And who knows, we might find the way to get the software rendering back into fashion.
Then, every PC, even the lowest performing ones will have excellent CPUs. If we could get software rendering going again, that might be just the solution we all need. Intel’s integrated graphics just don't work. I don't think they will ever work.

TG Daily: These are harsh words. It looks like Intel has a lot of things coming down the pipe.

Sweeney: They always say ‘Oh, we know it has never worked before, but the next generation ...” It has always been the next generation. They go from one generation to the next one and to the next one. They're not faster now than they have been at any time in the past.




Check back on Tuesday for the second part of the interview, in which Sweeney discusses the future of the PC and game consoles.

Read the third part of the interview here: Unreal Engine 4.0 aims at the next generation console war

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