Friday, November 1st 2024

Etched Introduces AI-Powered Games Without GPUs, Displays Minecraft Replica

The gaming industry is about to get massively disrupted. Instead of using game engines to power games, we are now witnessing an entirely new and crazy concept. A startup specializing in designing ASICs specifically for Transformer architecture, the foundation behind generative AI models like GPT/Claude/Stable Diffusion, has showcased a demo in partnership with Decart of a Minecraft clone being entirely generated and operated by AI instead of the traditional game engine. While we use AI to create images and videos based on specific descriptions and output pretty realistic content, having an AI model spit out an entire playable game is something different. Oasis is the first playable, real-time, real-time, open-world AI model that takes users' input and generates real-time gameplay, including physics, game rules, and graphics.

An interesting thing to point out is the hardware that powers this setup. Using a single NVIDIA H100 GPU, this 500-million parameter Oasis model can run at 720p resolution at 20 generated frames per second. Due to limitations of accelerators like NVIDIA's H100/B200, gameplay at 4K is almost impossible. However, Etched has its own accelerator called Sohu, which is specialized in accelerating transformer architectures. Eight NVIDIA H100 GPUs can power five Oasis models to five users, while the eight Sohu cards are capable of serving 65 Oasis runs to 65 users. This is more than a 10x increase in inference capability compared to NVIDIA's hardware on a single-use case alone. The accelerator is designed to run much larger models like future 100 billion-parameter generative AI video game models that can output 4K 30 FPS, all thanks to 144 GB of HBM3E memory, yielding 1,152 GB in eight-accelerator server configuration.
Regarding the Oasis design (shown below), it is vastly different than something like OpenAI Sora. While most current AI video generators create pre-rendered segments, a newly developed system enables real-time interaction by processing each frame individually. At its core, the technology leverages advanced machine learning architectures, including specialized neural networks and attention mechanisms that process spatial and temporal data simultaneously. This approach allows the AI to maintain consistency while responding to user input in real-time, demonstrating an understanding of physics that enables natural object manipulation and construction within virtual spaces. The research team implemented several technical enhancements to ensure smooth performance, such as adaptive noise processing and specialized computational optimizations. Looking ahead, developers plan to expand the system's capabilities to handle longer sequences and more complex simulations, allowing for much smoother gameplay, just in time for 4K model. Oasis is available for users to try here with a queue system (as AI nerds play games, too).
Source: Etched
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11 Comments on Etched Introduces AI-Powered Games Without GPUs, Displays Minecraft Replica

#1
Vincero
Is that reallly more efficient than Geforce Now though?
Also, I'd be interested to see how they avoid IP violations if the game starts to become another game...
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#2
londiste
The gaming industry is about to get massively disrupted.
The accelerator is designed to run much larger models like future 100 billion-parameter generative AI video game models that can output 4K 30 FPS, all thanks to 144 GB of HBM3E memory, yielding 1,152 GB in eight-accelerator server configuration.
For some reason I am quite certain that this will not be interrupting gaming industry. Eight very powerful accelerators, over TB of VRAM and you get a crappy small version of Minecraft at 4K30? :)
Besides, this thing needs to have a whole lot of hours with an actual existing game first.
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#3
Aleksandar_038
Disruption: how to create a a demo of a potential game using 10x more resources than actually creating a real game...
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#4
Vayra86
londisteFor some reason I am quite certain that this will not be interrupting gaming industry. Eight very powerful accelerators, over TB of VRAM and you get a crappy small version of Minecraft at 4K30? :)
Besides, this thing needs to have a whole lot of hours with an actual existing game first.
I do think this is a stepping stone for much better procedural generation. But running the thing in real time to figure it all out is, much like RT, grossly inefficient.
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#5
SRB151
I can see it now...a game with a simple story, no rules until you start, every restart after death all new, but somehow keeps everything interesting and not frustrating. Somehow, I don't see it except for candy crush, tetris, and other simpler games. Even the original Rogue would be beyond frustrating if the rules, monsters, etc. were randomly plucked from an endless supply.
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#6
Solidstate89
Can't wait for my games to look blurry and fuzzy and shit.
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#7
Vincero
Solidstate89Can't wait for my games to look blurry and fuzzy and shit.
<troll mode>
Original FSR and very early DLSS has you covered there. ;)
Posted on Reply
#8
hsew
londisteFor some reason I am quite certain that this will not be interrupting gaming industry. Eight very powerful accelerators, over TB of VRAM and you get a crappy small version of Minecraft at 4K30? :)
Besides, this thing needs to have a whole lot of hours with an actual existing game first.
Aleksandar_038Disruption: how to create a a demo of a potential game using 10x more resources than actually creating a real game...
Given recent AI advances like L-MUL, it would not surprise me if something like this could run locally (and at much greater fidelity) in 5-10 years’ time.
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#9
pk67
Get easy guys a bit. It looks like author dont understand what he is writing in this case. It is not a breaktrough in gaming industry yet - it is just adv of their Sohu NPU.
They are aware their Sohu cannot compete with GPNPU like H100 at most fields, so they have created a kind of biased benchmark to show their hardware have clear adantage over H100.
They are just trying to catch some attention and some money from investors - it is not a story about gaming industry yet. But in a few years who knows ?
But imho massive changes in gaming industry will come with games where fps are not important at all.
When AI would allow us for cristal crisp realistic transformations at high res like 4k - so it would generate a tsunami of new content creators. For creation of original new content fps are not important until we dont ask for massive animations. Realistic transformations of still pictures in 3d easy to order for human creators would mark following revoluyion in gaming industry.
When AI output would dominate content creator tools like Blender in metrics like realism and easy of use it would be a THING.
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#10
lexluthermiester
VinceroIs that reallly more efficient than Geforce Now though?
Some of us don't care. Game Streaming is unacceptable in any form.
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#11
sephiroth117
I suppose Microsoft gave them authorization to use their assets for model training ?

Unless there's a strong and firm regulation around data usage, AI will always be (rightfully) vilified in those kinds of usage (creative, artistic, video game, movies...)

Until then I will happily enjoy my games running on a dedicated hardware and made by humans for humans
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