This article comes from the public Silicon Valley Insight (ID: guigudiyixian), the original title “This super hardcore The game contains Microsoft’s huge ambition to achieve revival! “, Ai Faner released with permission. p>
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In recent weeks, major video websites and game forums have been screened wildly by a game: “Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020”. p>
Friends who follow the game should have some impressions about this game. Last year at the E3 game show, Microsoft announced that this world-famous flight simulator game will return in 2020. And the game screen that Microsoft showed on the E3 at the time surprised everyone. p>
▲ The “Sim Flight 2020” trailer at the 2019 E3 game show, the video comes from the official Xbox account p>
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If the previous flight simulation games only simulated the operation of flight, then the latest “Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020” will make the screen and details to the extreme. And Microsoft claims: “This game can take anywhere in the world.” As soon as this word came out, it caused an uproar in the game industry immediately. Countless players have expressed great expectations for this game, and the game even won ” 2020 Most Expected Game “list. p>
The chief engineer of the game also said last year: In order to complete such a masterpiece that allows the virtual world and real time to overlap in a certain dimension, Microsoft has invested a lot of data and top black technology. And these so-called “black”Technology”, maybe you are not familiar with or even unheard of, and some have even faded out of people’s vision for many years. p>
So how did this Flight Simulator 2020 create such a real world? How much top technology does Microsoft invest in it? What hidden ambitions behind Microsoft’s release of this game? Today, the small explorer will take everyone from the technical level to reveal this extremely hard core simulation masterpiece. p>
Bing Map of “Resurrection” h3>
According to the official data released by Microsoft, the game will include: 400 cities, complete roads and buildings with 2 million human settlements, more than 48,000 airports, 1.5 billion buildings, 1.5 trillion trees, all of which According to the real world 1: 1 reconstruction, it can be said that Microsoft has completely restored a real earth in this game. All these buildings are ground-based photogrammetry through Microsoft’s own Bing Map (Bing Global Satellite Map) to achieve a high degree of consistency between the virtual world and the real map. p>
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▲ Bing Map satellite data range p>
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Bing Map was once a 3D satellite imagery map with Google earth. It was one of the Windows ecological products that Microsoft created for its mobile phone operating system Windows Phone to occupy the mobile operation market. Unfortunately, due to various reasons, Microsoft’s strategy of occupying the mobile market failed, Bing Map also gradually lost in the competition with Google earth, and gradually faded out of people’s vision. p>
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▲ SimulationFlying the Golden Gate Bridge in 2020 p>
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However, Microsoft did not give up Bing Map, instead it kept expanding the city database for it, and invested a lot of research and development resources to improve the image rendering technology, in order to seize the opportunity in the VR competition in the future. The head of Microsoft Flight Simulation, Jorg Neumann, said that Bing Map ’s powerful rendering capabilities were originally developed for HoloLens augmented reality glasses. He said, “We want people to use a head-mounted display to virtual tour around the world. We applied this technology to Flight Simulator earlier in the year. Now it seems that this decision is too wise. P>
Azure AI brings code to life h3>
Bing Maps ’global satellite images and a global city modeling database provide the basis for Flight Simulator 2020, and the addition of the Azure AI engine algorithm presents players with an infinitely close to the real world. In the game, the different types of buildings generated by Bing Map are equivalent to real satellite images with a resolution of 5-30 cm, and map designers use this as a basis to map textures; then all the landscapes and buildings are complemented by 3D modeling The appearance, details such as trees, grass, sand and other details are completed by AI calculations. p>
When the player is experiencing the flight, the direction of the mountain and river current passing by the ground will be adjusted according to the wind direction of the ground at that time. Each leaf and each grass will have branches with independent code calculation. According to the information revealed by Microsoft developers, a cloud model alone involves calibration of 32 parameters such as blurriness, density, shape and other parameters, and all this is just to make it look more realistic and more like a Just a cloud. p>
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▲ AI algorithm depicts scene details to the extreme p>
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Even the weather in the game changes in real time based on changes in natural conditions such as time and weather. Imagine that you chose a flight departing from Beijing Capital Airport in the game. At this time, it rained drastically in the capital airport in the real world, and the screen in the game gradually darkened and began to rain. What an amazing experience. p>
There is no doubt that such a huge amount of code work cannot be done by humans alone. All of this relies on the powerful computing capabilities of Microsoft’s own Azure AI. Azure AI allows data scientists and artificial intelligence developers to use simple Azure cloud computing resources, including GPUs, to train artificial intelligence models. The data scientist only needs to define the task requirements and set the input, storage, and output settings. All other complicated background tasks related to infrastructure management, scaling, and batch work tasks can be automatically completed by Azure Batch AI. p>
In 2018, Microsoft’s partner Caiyun Technology used Azure Batch AI services to develop a containerized artificial intelligence solution for Vipshop, increasing the efficiency of its overseas business team by 85%, and processing 1 million pictures. The analysis tagging processing time was shortened to 1% in the past, only 5 minutes, and the time spent on the deep learning training of the algorithm model was also reduced from 2 months to 1 week, which greatly improved the speed of the AI system iteration. . p>
If the map data of Bing Map only provides the basis for the realization of Flight Simulator 2020, then Microsoft ’s own artificial intelligence system, Azure AI, gives “life” to this huge database, making this “Simulation Flight” “2020” really created a “real world”. p>
According to the developer, the map data obtained from Bing Map alone is 2PB; it is about 2 million GB, and the total data volume of the entire game has reached a staggering 70PB. The unit converted into our familiar unit is 70 million GB. Such a huge game capacity is unique in human history. p>
The cloud game service plan “Project xCloud” is not only targeting the sinking market h3>
As mentioned above, the entire game’s capacity has reached a staggering 70 million GB. This requires at least 70,000 1T hard drives to install this game, so players want to download this Flight Simulator 2020 completely. It is impossible to get down to a personal computer. p>
In order to allow players to experience this game on their personal computers, Microsoft has adopted Project xCloud dynamic streaming technology. The details of the game are gradually displayed according to the player’s game progress, so that the greater the player’s network bandwidth, the more complete the picture details. p>
Actually, Microsoft released its cloud gaming service plan “Project xCloud” in October 2018. The idea that “ Project x Cloud ” wants to achieve is that gamers run Xbox One games through cloud servers through mobile phones, tablets and other devicesDrama, that is, getting rid of traditional game console hardware, and experiencing high-quality console games on any device, anytime, anywhere. The dynamic streaming technology contained in it is the core of such technology. p>
In order to ensure the experience of streaming technology in the current network environment, Microsoft’s “Project xCloud” did not immediately release the test scope of the application. Instead, it passed a year-long internal test and gradually targeted some regions. Xbox mature users invite test methods to ensure a smooth user experience. This may indicate that Project xCloud’s original intention was not to upend its own Xbox ecosystem, but to bring more experience to its users through cloud gaming. p>
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▲ Microsoft Projet x Cloud technology p>
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However, when this technology was launched, it was criticized by a large number of media in the technology industry. They believe that with the reduction of computer hardware configuration costs and the rapid development of network communication technology, it is not the same for players to download a 3A masterpiece at home. Difficult. p>
But Microsoft’s application of Project xCloud to such an almost 1: 1 “reality” that restores the real world is undoubtedly a dimensionality reduction for game makers and media that have sung the technology. In essence, the birth of Project xCloud may not simply be to sink the 3A games currently on the market to the mobile end, but to allow players with only ordinary PCs and hosts to experience a higher latitude world. p>
Behind the virtual world is the huge ambition of Microsoft’s revival h3>
Small detective thinks that Microsoft spends so much money and R & D resources is not just about developing a game that is highly realistic. Of course, but in terms of game quality, Flight Simulator 2020 is undoubtedly the best game on the planet. It is not so much a game as it is a gorgeous “black technology” conference. And the host of this conference is Microsoft. p>
This gigantic “Flight Simulator 2020” combines all of Microsoft’s “black technology” to achieve such excellent game quality. Its wonderful graphics performance, real-time weather conditions, huge data code processing capabilities, is it really just a game? p>
The landing of this game signifies that Microsoft has the ability to integrate map data, AI computing, dynamic streaming and other technologies to create an infinite virtual world close to reality. And the application of such a virtual world in the future will be infinitely huge: remote real-world tourism, deep-sea exploration, ultra-long-distance space exploration, and even building a real human civilization (Earth OL) in the virtual world p>
This remote exploration method will undoubtedly provide great security for future humans to enter the unknown space. Astronauts no longer need to risk their lives on a journey of unpredictable risk on other unknown planets; deep-sea probes can also clearly answer the unsolved mysteries of Bermuda. p>
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▲ Humans will use technology to explore the universe in the future p>
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These applications may not be possible in a short time, but Microsoft has opened up a feasible route for their implementation. p>
In the past ten years, with the development of the mobile Internet, Google, Facebook, Apple, and other high-tech companies representing the new era have risen rapidly, and Microsoft, the “big brother” who laid the personal computer terminal, seems to be just behind Just faltering after it. Bing Map, Project xCloud, and Azure AI are all technology products that Microsoft has released for several years. When these technologies were released, few people were optimistic about them. In the era of smart phones, cloud technology, and artificial intelligence, some people even said that They are nothing but Microsoft’s ardent attempts. And these technologies have failed and disappeared in the market again and again, as if even history is telling us: “Microsoft has done its best, and the only way to rely on Windows is from beginning to end.” P>
However, Microsoft ’s vision for the future with this Flight Simulator 2020 goes far beyond gaming. p>
Perhaps, Microsoft will stand in the spotlight with a product that uses the technology in this game at a future conference, and then say to the world: “Khaleesi back to Westeros.” (I am back. ) P>
(thisThe article is authorized to reprint from Silicon Valley Insight: The first entrance to Silicon Valley resources. For more articles, please click on the website: www.svinsight.com. To reprint this article, please contact the original author. ) Span> p>