Intel have announced their new chip which is going to enter the market late next year. Code named “Larrabee”, the chip will be in addition to their on-board graphics offering they produce at the moment.

With another entrant into the graphics card market, which is dominated by the giants of NVIDIA and AMD (ATi), it should be good for consumers with Intel entering the race. Increased competition which should hopefully drive down prices, but at the very least, push the technology envelope for gamers.

And pushing the envelope is what this new project is all about. Rather than creating faster and faster GPUs, Intel are going to approach it from the multi-core angle: Squeeze as many cores onto a die as possible and let them do the math of a quick GPU. But that isn’t the only consideration for Intel - they are also expecting the technology to kick-start the computing world, preparing everyone for the 100’s or even 1000’s of cores we can expect in tomorrow’s CPUs and GPUs.

The Larrabee platform will initially work alongside DirectX and OpenGL - which hopefully means a good support for other OS’s like Linux in the future - a support that is clearly lacking with the current two big graphics cards manufacturers.

The last 12 months have seen new game engines coming out left right and centre. While most casual gamers wont know they are there, some of these engines look and feel great to use and really change how we play.

Last year it was Call Of Duty with it’s new proprietary engine which featured HDR lighting and depth of field, not forgetting bullet penetration - the engine taking factors such as the type of surface and the thickness into account thoughout each map. This year saw GTA with a new game engine RAGE. Whilst this is impressive, the Euphoria engine devolved by Natural Motion was a leap in a new direction for everyone. It can be worked into any game engine bringing life into the ageing ragdolls formula. Then, ahead of us we have Far Cry 2’s Dunia which looks untouchable in technical terms with things such as real-world weather, dynamic fire propagation and non-scripted enemy A.I.

But the one I want to talk about is one that has been made for one of my favourite games series, Battlefield. It’s called Frostbite (hence the article title, it’s there for a reason!). Currently only being used by the latest Battlefield game, Bad Company, the engine’s main and most visual effects are the real-time destruction - meaning you can blow a hole in just about anything. 90% of the gaming world can be destroyed with frames of buildings and other stuff remaining indestructible, to prevent the landscape from becoming completely flat. Remember, shooting a wall in any of the other BF games creates a big cloud of smoke and rubble but still the wall is intact. Well now the walls can be destroyed in some way - more so if its a more powerful weapon. To go along with this is one of the best sounding systems I’ve heard, with the HDR audio system, making the world feel like a battlefield with louder bangs and real-time sounds for weapons. Where games would use a sounds loop or sample for a firing gun, the Frostbite engine plays each sound as it is so a firing gun has sounds for every bullet. I don’t know the technical stuff behind it but it works a treat. I do know the game can play the more important sounds over the top of not so important sounds in real time, making the battlefield sound great with distant battles sounding like they are just that, distant. The engine also has new lighting to go with the dynamic battlefield with shadows changing with missing trees and walls.

Whilst I love DICE and their Battlefield series including the new Battlefield Bad Company on my Xbox, I am at heart a PC gamer. And to know that at the moment there are 5 BF titles in the wings (one being Heroes and a second for Korean gamers) I am feeling good this engine is making its way over to the PC. My problems with this engine is the fact you can blow a hole in the wall but can’t shoot through it like the CoD4 engine. I believe the features of the Frostbite engine and the CoD4 engine, if combined, would go hand-in-hand to make a great playing experience. Clipping is also a big problem for Frostbite with trees staying in shape for online play and branches resting through the ground. While it’s not a big deal, it’s still noticeable.

All in all I can’t wait to see the engine on future titles, with tweaks worked out and with the better processing power of PC’s should (I hope) see an improvement. Well done DICE you’ve made a great engine and I know you’re going to continue to make some great games.