BeHardware - News - January 16, 2007

Anxious to justify the use of Core 2 Quad processors other than 3D rendering or video encoding, Intel as published the Ice Storm Fighters, a playable technological demonstration which is supposed to show the benefit of Intel's quad core processors. The engine of this demonstration massively uses multi-thread and has been developed by Futuremark.

Ice Storm Fighters features, according to Intel, advanced AI algorithms (the AI is often used to justify the point of several cores in games). The PhysX API is also included and allows a complex modelling of trails left by missiles, smoke and particles additionally to the behaviour (gravity, acceleration, acceleration) of hovercrafts.

(percentage of use per core, thanks to Coprin for the screenshot)

The demonstration requires 1GB of memory and a GPU supporting the Shader Model 3. On the CPU side, the Core 2 Quad but also the Core 2 Duo are accepted. The latter is logically up to two times slower in this demonstration and Intel recommends using low adjustments instead do high in this case. After a brief trial, we wondered what Intel really wants to prove with this demonstration. Indeed, the multithread is included and the Core 2 Quad is much faster than the Core 2 Duo, but the whole isn't really impressive as much for the technical and play aspect or the shuddering framerate. Under those circumstances, we even wonder if the demo couldn't lead to the opposite reaction than the one initially awaited…

To download it, go to this page.