Didn't work on my AMD 3700x + 64GB + GTX 1070. Windows 10 is updated and nvidia drivers too. Got only a black screen after clicking "play" :( Tested both 2.52 and 2.47 versions.
Sometimes I see a frozen render.
Maybe it only work on Intel CPUs...
ALiEn – a GPU-accelerated artificial life simulation program
101–110 of 217 posts
Re: ALiEn – a GPU-accelerated artificial life simulation program
#102I have no experience with CUDA, is it possible to run this on a normal PC with a 1080ti? I've tried, the program runs but I cant step the simulation even once.
Same problem with my 1070ti (also Pascal architecture). When first started can pan, zoom, edit, etc. But, as soon as Run is hit, rendering completely breaks: scroll bars indicate zoom is working, but display never updates. In addition, program hangs on exit (one CPU is pegged at 100%). Have updated to current CUDA (11.3.1) and current NVidia driver (466.77) with no luck.
Submitted an issue on GitHub: https://github.com/chrxh/alien/issues/21.
Re: ALiEn – a GPU-accelerated artificial life simulation program
#103Didn't work on my AMD 3700x + 64GB + GTX 1070. Windows 10 is updated and nvidia drivers too. Got only a black screen after clicking "play" :( Tested both 2.52 and 2.47 versions.
Sometimes I see a frozen render. Maybe it only work on Intel CPUs...
Nope. Appears to be broken for Nvidia 10 series. I'm on Intel with a 1070ti + another user reports issues on the 1080ti (see similar post in this thread; reported to author here: https://github.com/chrxh/alien/issues/21).
Re: ALiEn – a GPU-accelerated artificial life simulation program
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there any evidence suggesting we're not in a simulation?
A lot of physics seems unnecessarily expensive to compute. Quantum mechanics suggest we either have nonlocality or exponential blowup, both of which cause simulation challenges. With just classical physics you don’t need to deal with that. On the other hand, there are a lot of things that make physics tractable to compute, such as the +++- metric tensor and other factors forbidding causality violations. A universe wi…
> A lot of physics seems unnecessarily expensive to compute.
Sure, but look at the state of frontend web development :)
Re: ALiEn – a GPU-accelerated artificial life simulation program
#105>The Autoverse is an artificial life simulator based on a cellular automaton complex enough to represent the substratum of an artificial chemistry. It is deterministic, internally consistent and vaguely resembles real chemistry. Tiny environments, simulated in the Autoverse and filled with populations of a simple, designed lifeform, Autobacterium lamberti, are maintained by a community of enthusiasts obsessed with ge…
I read that a few years ago, probably because it was recommended here on HN. Absolutely wild book.
It seriously flipped my view of the world on it's head for a bit. Then I read it again right after lol
Re: ALiEn – a GPU-accelerated artificial life simulation program
#106Reminds me of my favorite programming game that no one has heard of: http://grobots.sourceforge.net (Old video of grobots in action at https://youtu.be/BLXKedZHls4?t=801 ) Alien looks awesome!
Then there's Core War from 1984 [1]. 11 years ago I computationally evolved a warrior (a program competing for virtual resources) and submitted it to the nano hill [2], it's still ranked top 20 to this day. Every few months the hill emails me the stats of someone trying to beat us with a new warrior :)
Re: ALiEn – a GPU-accelerated artificial life simulation program
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sometimes I see a frozen render. Maybe it only work on Intel CPUs...
Nope. Appears to be broken for Nvidia 10 series. I'm on Intel with a 1070ti + another user reports issues on the 1080ti (see similar post in this thread; reported to author here: https://github.com/chrxh/alien/issues/21 ).
Thank you for letting me know!
Later I'm going to test it on another computer with a RTX 2060 super, but slower CPU and slower interconnections (PCIe).
Thanks for the link too. :)
Re: ALiEn – a GPU-accelerated artificial life simulation program
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there any evidence suggesting we're not in a simulation?
A lot of physics seems unnecessarily expensive to compute. Quantum mechanics suggest we either have nonlocality or exponential blowup, both of which cause simulation challenges. With just classical physics you don’t need to deal with that. On the other hand, there are a lot of things that make physics tractable to compute, such as the +++- metric tensor and other factors forbidding causality violations. A universe wi…
> A lot of physics seems unnecessarily expensive to compute.
When you make a simple simulation of rigid bodies with classical physics you often get numerically unstable results - bodies jerking against each other, slowly passing through, etc. One common way to solve this is to introduce a "frozen" state. When objects are close enough to be at rest with balanced forces - you mark them as frozen and don't compute them every frame to save computing power. You only unfreeze them when some other unfrozen object interacts with them.
Additionally hierarchical space indexing algorithms are often used to avoid n^2 comparisons calculating what interacts and what doesn't. And these algorithms often use heuristics and hashing functions with collisions to subdivide the problem, which might result in objects becoming unfrozen without actually touching each other.
The result from inside this simulation would be weird, nonlinear, nonlocal and look a little like wave function collapse (if particle A whose coordinates hashed through this weird function are the same as those of particle B happens to unfreeze - the particle B unfreezes as well despite not interacting in any way). And this would be probably considered "hard to compute" compared to the simple equations the system developer wanted to simulate.
Example that might be more relatable for scientists - it's much easier and cheaper computationally to make a numerical simulation for 3-body problem than to make an analytic simulation of it. But describing this numerical simulation behavior in terms of physical equations requires much more complex model than the equations that you wanted to compute in the first place. You have to include implementation details like floating point accuracy, overflows, etc. And if you go far enough you have to add the possibility of space ray hitting a memory cell in the computer that runs your simulation.
I'm not saying this is the reason QM is weird - I don't understand QM well enough to form valid hypotheses ;), but I'm saying we might be mistaking the intention of The Developer with the compromises (s)he made to get there. If you take any imperfect implementation of a simple model and treat it as perfect - the model becomes much more complex.
Re: ALiEn – a GPU-accelerated artificial life simulation program
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
He is, but sometimes I go cross-eyed reading his books. He likes to explore some crazy topics, which makes for great reading but sometimes confusing reading too.
Yeah, that's why my favorite way of reading him is via his short stories. Just enough to get the big idea across and not get lost in too much detail.
Could you recommend one or two of these short stories? Thank you!
Re: ALiEn – a GPU-accelerated artificial life simulation program
#110>The Autoverse is an artificial life simulator based on a cellular automaton complex enough to represent the substratum of an artificial chemistry. It is deterministic, internally consistent and vaguely resembles real chemistry. Tiny environments, simulated in the Autoverse and filled with populations of a simple, designed lifeform, Autobacterium lamberti, are maintained by a community of enthusiasts obsessed with ge…
What a coincidence, I just reread that section of permutation city yesterday. I wonder if there is an efficient cellular automata that vaguely approximates the behavior of real chemistry, just like the autoverse. It's a shame the garden eden configuration plot point is kind of bunk.
Stephen Wolfram says yes.