Ways that new technology opens the door to new types of games

RAM

What does having more RAM allow game developers to do that they weren't able to do before?

What exactly do games use RAM for?
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/in ... 835AAsM2jg

Quote:

David N:
When your playing a game your computer is actually utilizing two different sets of ram, The RAM in the slots on your motherboard and the Video RAM which is located on your video card. 

Since Hard drives are slow at reading and writing data (compared to RAM) and games need super fast access, Your computer will temporarily load up all the critical data it needs to run the game fast (such as the code for the engine and character models.) onto the RAM where it can be accessed quickly and easily. It will also use this ram while running through the games code to store variables and whatever else the computers code needs to be accessed quickly. 

The Video RAM is used to store uncompleted frames as the video card renders them. Since games run normally run at frame rates faster than 30per second, RAM must be used for it's super fast read and write speeds. 
[...]
dusty:
everything. if you have ever looked, your harddrive is not constantly loading data while you are playing a game, thats a waste of energy. its alot easier to load up the ram with game files and have the computer run the game off of the ram instead of constantly loading data from the harddrive when a scene changes 

in summary...everything: map, gun physics, characters, etc.

When RAM Speed Matters (and How It Affects Your Games)
http://lifehacker.com/when-ram-speed-ma ... 1436679680

In what way does adding extra RAM help PC gaming performance?
http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/10913 ... rformance/

Computer Memory Upgrade - Your guide to computer memory upgrades, RAM buying guide, and guide to install compatible RAM.
http://www.computermemoryupgrade.net/index1.html

Quote:

In general the more RAM a computer has the faster the computer operates. Why? RAM is where all the information is kept just before the computer needs to use it.

Think of it this way. During a conversation a person can speak without interruption if everything being talked about is in his or her memory. However, if a person does not have enough memory and has to look something up during the course of the conversation, in a book or newspaper, then the conversation stops until the needed information is found.

Computers are very similar; they can continue processing without interruption as long as all needed information is in memory (RAM). When that is not the case, the computer stops, retrieves the needed information from storage (i.e. Hard drive, CD, disk) and places it into memory and then continues processing. The more interruptions the computer receives to retrieve information the slower the computer. The more memory a computer has, the fewer interruptions and the faster the computer operates. More memory equates to more speed.

NVIDIA - CUDA
https://developer.nvidia.com/about-cuda

Quote:

CUDA is a parallel computing platform and programming model that enables dramatic increases in computing performance by harnessing the power of the graphics processing unit (GPU)

StackOverflow - Why not using GPUs as a CPU?
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1100 ... s-as-a-cpu



Virtual-Reality Head-Mounted Displays

What new kinds of games do VR displays like Oculus Rift allow for?
- well, you've now hopefully got the ability to use players' peripheral vision. I remember this being extremely annoying when I went back and played the OFP demo after 14 years. Only a small part of my normal vision was available to me. But I'm not sure if this is really an opportunity for a new type of game or just an improvement on an existing type of game. What kind of game would be impossible without peripheral vision?