Microsoft has created an AI-generated version of Quake
Microsoft has created an AI-generated version of Quake
www.theverge.com
Microsoft has created an AI-generated version of Quake
52 comments
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“We’ve talked about game preservation as an activity for us, and these models and their ability to learn completely how a game plays without the necessity of the original engine running on the original hardware opens up a ton of opportunity.”
No, I don't think that you're talking about preservation then. Not even game emulation. You're talking about game hallucination.
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Yeah it's the difference between playing an old game today and remembering what it was like to play in the past. Not the same thing at all.
Plus a big part of old games these days is decompiling it, so you can recompile to run with higher framerates, higher resolution and without emulation. It's also possible to add nice QoL features and entire new game modes.
Just look at what Ship of Harkinian has done with OOT. It looks great, it feels like OOT still, but has the nice quick buttons. And if you want to experience the game like it's brand new, there is the randomizer. And similar projects exist for other old games.
And there's also people going through the code, figuring out glitches. And how certain mechanics worked, nobody understood very well back in the day. Discover Easter eggs that were never found.
That's game preseveration, not some AI fever dream if you squint a bit it kinda sorta looks like the old game.
A lot of the AI stuff I've seen from Microsoft also sucks hard and they know it. But they operate under the assumption these LLM systems will get better and better. Like this game thing they admit it sucks now, but imagine what it could be one day. However the reality seems to show more and more the point of rapidly diminishing returns has been reached. Throwing more data and processing at the thing isn't going to make it a lot better.
They are also so busy inventing new AI features nobody wants. Putting new flashy buttons everywhere and doing awful tech demos. They completely forgot to make actual useful features. For example a thing that happens a lot when working with less computer capable people, is people sending screenshots of Excel data. How awesome would it be if instead of helping write a new signature, the AI would go: "Wow what an asshole, sending a screenshot like that. Here is the original data so you can copy paste.". Or when trying to send an email without the attachment that really should have an attachment, it warns you. It already does this, but I think it just triggers on certain keywords like attach. This would be an excellent use case for an LLM, where it doesn't even matter much if it's wrong some of the time.
For me personally "AI" in the form of LLM can fuck all the way off. It certainly has it's uses, but this all in use it everywhere for everything has made me hate it. And the misleading marketing making people think it's basically AGI is wrong on so many levels.
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I'm a real dummy about modern video games. I was an OG gamer from the 80s, who spent the equivalent of a down payment on a house in quarters, playing Centipede at mall arcades. Later, I got into the early PC shoot-em up games like Quake, Quake 2, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, etc.
But I never got a game console, because I had recognized that I could have a serious problem with video game addiction. Eventually, I stopped playing altogether, especially after I started a business, and had to carve out time in my schedule, and video games and sports had to go. I didnt follow either for about 25 years.
Now I'm semi-retired, and would love to play those old games again, but I don't really know how to do it on a modern PC. I actually have all my old CD-ROMs, but my computer hasn't had a CD-ROM drive for years, and Im not going to buy a console.
Is there a way to download Quake and Quake 2, and my other favorites? Where do I go for that?
I know, I'm a gaming idiot, I just spent the last few decades focusing on other stuff.
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I’m pretty sure they’re just referring to using the techniques to replicate things after learning, not hallucinating the whole game as if it would be a 1:1 copy.
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I read this as they're even generating the frames with AI:
The tech demo is part of Microsoft’s Copilot for Gaming push, and features an AI-generated replica of Quake II that is playable in a browser. The Quake II level is very basic and includes blurry enemies and interactions, and Microsoft is limiting the amount of time you can even play this tech demo
While Microsoft originally demonstrated its Muse AI model at 10fps and a 300 x 180 resolution, this latest demo runs at a playable frame rate and at a slightly higher resolution of 640 x 360. It’s still a very limited experience though, and more of hint at what might be possible in the future.
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Nobody wants this
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Maybe some want this, but nobody needs this.
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Wait until Preston shows up with his AI generated radiant quests before you judge.
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Hit detection doesn't work, going into pure darkness makes the AI hallucinate to the point it distorts the map layout, npcs will teleport around ot just disappear... runs at like 640p at maybe 20 fps, textures are a blurred indistinct mess...
Oh and it requires basically a super computer to run this.
Brilliant.
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Preservation!
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How to actually do games preservation:
Reform IP laws.
Mandate open sourcing of hardware and software architectures after some period of time. 10 years? 5 years after no more of that hardware/software is sold? Yes texhnicalities are insanely complicated but you get the idea.
Oh, how about government funding for emulator development? We fund libraries that preserve books, and movies, and other stuff.
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Copy+paste is still a pain in the ass in Microsoft Teams. Why don't you work on that instead?
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I can't make a correct numbered list in Teams to save my life. I have to do it on word and then....copy paste
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Teams is kind of awesome of what you want to do is exchange emojis and funny gifs with your co-workers. Not so much if you want to work.
I miss the days when applications were coded like applications, not like web sites. The ammount of clutter that goes behind the scenes to get a simple OK button on screen these days must be mind numbing.
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No, fix the search first!
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"We heard you, and added more AI to it!"
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I wonder what else it can get wrong for only the cost of a few glaciers.
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Can I steal this quote and pretend I came up with it?
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You can claim the quote is Fair Use and that your shitty business model depends on it.
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I love how corporations anounce: we stole something and call it AI.
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In this case, Microsoft does own the IP (it bought Bethesda after Bethesda bought id), so they definitely didn't legally steal it.
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They just reproduced it in the most uninteresting way possible.
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Technically they stole from themselves because they didn't transfer ownership from Bethesda to Microsoft. Those are still separate entities.
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Fucking stupid, this timeline sucks
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I tried playing it but it's so incoherent (walls becoming paths, dead enemies randomly coming back to life, health pickups that do nothing, etc) that I'm not even sure this counts as a game. Typically a game has rules so that you can set how you play according to those rules. This is just poorly-generated trash, which I guess fits in with the rest of the hot garbage AI we've currently got.
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We have Quake at home
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But, we already have quake.
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Old school gamer here. Headline should definitely say Quake II.
There might not seem to be much difference to a casual observer, but from that standpoint there's not much difference between either and any other FPS. Even Minecraft to some extent.
Speaking of which, the Minecraft equivalent to this had all the same problems outlined in other comments here. Interesting as a proof of concept, but there are almost certainly better ways of using AI.
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I wonder why they didn't do Quake 1 instead.
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They tried but it kept creating clones of PacMan instead
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i hope every tech company burns
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The tech demo is part of Microsoft’s Copilot for Gaming push, and features an AI-generated replica of Quake II that is playable in a browser. The Quake II level is very basic and includes blurry enemies and interactions, and Microsoft is limiting the amount of time you can even play this tech demo.
Microsoft is still positioning Muse as an AI model that can help game developers prototype games. When Muse was unveiled in February, Microsoft also mentioned it was exploring how this AI model could help improve classic games, just like Quake II, and bring them to modern hardware.
Okay, here's a much-less ambitious use of existing AI technology that I think would be vastly-more-useful than whatever they're off doing: how about just going out and using existing AI upscaling techniques and limited human interaction to statically-upscale the textures by maybe 2x to 4x, take advantage of more VRAM on newer hardware?
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/993090/Lossless_Scaling/
That's kind of what this is for.
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That's frame scaling in real-time, rather than offline texture scaling.
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There is a lot of potential for generating on the fly skins and specs. Everyone seems to want to do stupid flashy junk, but a well configured agentic setup could easily get constrained in ways that alter geometry and interactions more dynamically than the broad scope nonsense I keep seeing.
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I mean the demo capability isnt bad, could test out 100 ideas before you commit. But thats not what this is going to be used for. Its going to be a weapon against developers eventually.
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Don't want a friggin thing to do with it then.
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"You could imagine a world where.."
Sure, I can imagine a lot of things, and a lot of them will never materialize.
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Thank god, I've been waiting for this my whole life /s
52 comments
But if it’s AI generated, who are they going to lay off after they release it?
Ted and Cheryl in accounting. I'm calling it now.
Surely not Ted! That mighty hero dines at the Allfather’s banquet, surrounded by the mightiest heros of all the ages!
Lmao