A country on highways.
This title is no exaggeration.
For the United States, public transportation is a complete misconception.
Only in some major cities on the East Coast is there a demand for subways and buses.
Neither airplanes nor railways can rival the absolute dominance of highways in the United States.
In a vast and resource-rich place like California, you need a car even to go out and buy some everyday consumer goods.
Americas Truck Simulator has proven the allure of immersive driving for Yankees.
This time, thanks to its brand-new hardware capabilities, GAMENOVA is finally able to focus its attention on faster and more agile sedans and sports cars.
General Motors, California Division.
If any car company could represent United States car culture, General Motors would definitely be one of the most suitable candidates.
The company was founded around the same time as Ford, and its brands have long since entered the Volkswagen market.
Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, and others are all excellent brands under General Motors.
"Mr. Lin, welcome to General Motors ' California Design Center."
Russell, dressed in a suit and tie, meticulously arranged the highest level of hospitality.
Upon hearing that Lin Lixin himself was going to visit, the then-president flew directly from the Detroit headquarters to California overnight.
Unlike Detroit, a center of car culture, California is more of a semiconductor technology empire.
Russell is now fairly clear about the purpose of his visit today.
It seems to be related to GAMENOVA's upcoming game project.
This is a big deal.
If Gamenova were in the United States, it would be a massive internet sensation.
Even if they were to pay for a license, we'd still have to get them to join us, let alone pay to become franchisees ourselves.
As long as their own car makes an appearance in the game, wow, just wait for sales to skyrocket.
Have you ever seen a game company that can influence truck sales?
Gamenova did just that.
"As expected of Mr. Lin, you have a keen eye. Although Detroit is our headquarters, our design center in California brings together the pinnacle of General Motors's exterior design capabilities."
Russell, half-flattering and half-bragging, introduced Lin Lixin, leading him to the first-floor office area. "You see," he said, "Our engineering team uses CAD for fully digital modeling designs, of course, all using S..."
GI Silicon Graphics Workstation.
Inside the huge office, rows of SGI's top-of-the-line workstations were installed.
Just as Hollywood needs graphics stations to do CG, the presence of computers is equally important for a design center.
In the past, if a car manufacturer wanted to develop its own new model, it would often need to spend a lot of time designing preliminary sketches.
Then, use a clay model to create a preliminary design and adjust the design of the drawings in real time.
It's not that this approach is unacceptable.
Sometimes this approach is more intuitive and precise than pure digitization.
In 1990, CAD software was not the kind of real-time 3D engineering software that would become the way it is today.
To use it, you can either choose SGI's accompanying graphical interface or control it directly via the command line.
Having wireframe models and some simple curved surfaces is already the limit.
Lin Lixin looked at the designers.
They skillfully operated the keyboard, but could only move one point on the model at a time, or perform some simple coordinate displacements.
It was truly a pitiful sight.
But if such a scene were to appear in the eyes of an ordinary person in this era, it would definitely be something out of a science fiction movie.
"Current digital design is still too immature."
Lin Lixin commented, but his tone was serious and not at all nitpicking, "MicroNova is currently trying to improve this aspect. If there is any progress, I will send someone to contact you."
With such a great opportunity, of course we should give our new graphics card a good promotion.
"Really?! That's a wonderful surprise!"
Russell exclaimed in surprise and nodded repeatedly.
Looking across the entire United States, Lucasfilm probably offers the best compensation for graphics workstations.
Industrial Light & Magic) is essentially MicroNova's testing ground for technology; whenever new graphics technologies emerge, they are always the first to be deployed to them.
To be honest, it was really tempting.
Compared to CAD digital design, the actual clay model design area is much more lively.
Clearly, this is the true core of the design at present.
Looking around, this one hall alone is filled with more than a dozen life-size gray clay models.
The designers held scrapers, occasionally scraping off a piece from the top, then squinting and standing back to examine it closely.
It's laborious, but it's much more intuitive than CAD, which only uses wireframes.
Of course, in addition to these full-size versions, there are also a number of scaled-down versions.
These are specifically designed for exterior design.
In a sense, this is a large wet component modeling center.
Designers use their brains as graphics cards and their hands instead of software tools, meticulously polishing their work.
work.
Among them are those with extremely radical designs.
It's clearly not a production car, but rather some kind of concept car.
"Mr. Lin, this is our wind tunnel testing center."
Russell led him to a huge room.
A model car was placed on the large open space.
The front features a fan as large as an entire wall.
A stream of colored smoke billowed out from directly in front, flying towards the car model.
By simply observing how the smoke flows across the vehicle body, one can, to some extent, analyze whether there are problems with the vehicle's design.
The lift can be further tested using the six-component balance at the bottom.
Just by looking at the testing scene, Lin Lixin could feel a strong sense of industrial aesthetics.
It's not just the design of the car itself, but also the outstanding performance of this top-notch factory that has achieved the ultimate in technology.
In an era before advanced computer technology, they achieved the best they could with pure machinery.
"On another note, can't wind tunnel simulations be done using computers? If the model has to be repeatedly modified after each test, wouldn't the development time be terrifyingly long?"
Lin Lixin surveyed the area.
It's not that there's no computer setup here, but it's not a data simulation as you might imagine; it's simply a device used to display photos.
These displays are only used for viewing wool yarn captured by high-speed cameras.
The dense strands of yarn stuck to the car body can reflect the stability of airflow through their own movement.
Computer simulations exist, but we rarely use them.
Russell hesitated for a moment, then shook his head.
CFD technology is nothing new; computer fluid dynamics simulation has always been a popular research topic in universities.
However, when it comes to actual production, the problems are simply numerous.
"Currently available software can only perform some simplified calculations. If the precision is even slightly higher, the computational workload increases exponentially."
Russell explained that they had certainly tried, "But it could only be used for some low-precision local analysis, and it required IBM's supercomputer, which was much more expensive than a wind tunnel, making it simply not cost-effective."
"Huh? You're using IBM's supercomputer for fluid calculus? No wonder—"
Lin Lixin scratched his head.
Supercomputers are indeed very good at performing calculations.
But fluid dynamics simulation is a completely different matter.
This is precisely the kind of work that graphics cards excel at.
The existence of massive concurrent data processing and ultra-wide, large-capacity video memory makes GPUs inherently suited for such data computation.
With its powerful CPUs, IBM's supercomputers possess unparalleled dominance when performing complex, single-threaded sequential computations.
But using this thing to calculate fluid dynamics?
That would be a complete waste of performance, a waste of effort.
"Uh... is there a problem?"
Noticing the puzzled look in Lin Lixin's tone, Russell asked in confusion.
"Of course there's a problem, and a big one at that—"
Lin Lixin shook his head helplessly, "To give an analogy, IBM's supercomputer is like—like me, a super-intelligent, invincible genius."
"Okay----? So?"
Russell wanted to make a comment, but unfortunately, what Lin Lixin said didn't seem to have any problems.
"Here's the problem: if you ask me to solve a very complex and difficult problem, I can solve it much faster than a normal person. But what if you ask me to draw a circle on a million squares?"
Lin Lixin shrugged. "My abilities won't speed up the process, right? As for the graphics card, it's like a team of tens of thousands of ordinary workers. While they can't solve problems beyond their capabilities, they're very good at drawing circles on a million grids."
GPUs can process tons of matrix operations in a single cycle.
However, even with a supercomputer, no matter how fast it is, it still has to calculate each problem one by one.
Supercomputers are truly adept at solving high-end problems such as large integer factorization, cryptography, nuclear physics simulation, astrophysics simulation, and meteorological simulation.
What about fluid simulation?
It essentially uses the concept of differentiation to continuously subdivide physical space to achieve a realistic effect.
"Use graphics cards, Mr. Russell. Use the new graphics card that MicroNova is developing. Trust me, your car models will iterate faster than anyone else's—faster than the sky!"
Lin Lixin grinned.
Well, another new requirement has been found.
I might be able to sign several big deals today.
Compared to the small volume of consumer-level orders from gamers, the volume of bulk purchases by an engineering department is staggering.
General Motors alone is enough to support the entire production line.
And there are countless other machine factories of that size in the United States.
Do you have a solution to this problem?
"Of course, while it can't achieve the same level of precision as a real wind tunnel, it's more than sufficient for rough measurements and rapid iterations."
That's enough! That's enough!
Russell was terrified.
If they could actually get their hands on this thing----
Imagine a workstation capable of running ten full simulations in a single day!
What if there are ten units? Or a hundred units?
General Motors can use this to complete in a very short time what other manufacturers would take months to do.
Time is money, baby!
This is a massive gold mine!
A multi-billion dollar gold mine!
"Mr. Lin, could you disclose more information about this batch of products? Could you—could you sign an exclusive supply agreement with General Motors?"
Russell no longer had time to verify whether Lin Lixin's claims were exaggerated.
Even if he still gambles, he has to grab it in advance.
"Hehe----Of course not, but we're destined to meet, so maybe I can eliminate the first batch of engineering-level testers ahead of schedule."
The test cards are delivered to you.
"That's enough! Mr. Lin, that's enough!"