COMP H4204 - Games Engineering II

Module Title:Games Engineering II
Language of Instruction:English
Credits: 10
NFQ Level:8
Module Delivered In No Programmes
Teaching & Learning Strategies: As well as traditional lectures students will undertake various laboratory exercises implementing various algorithms. They will be expected to participate in class on the materials covered. A term papers will involve a more in-depth study of the issues raised. Combination of lecture and laboratory sessions. Lectures will provide traditional theory. Laboratory sessions will employ formative practical assessment and learning concurrent and functional programming. Project work will be based on programming in C++11, C++14, Erlang and Haskell languages
Module Aim: Analyse, evaluate and implement concurrent algorithms, design patterns and testing techniques which allow computational processes to be executed efficiently within digital games. Design and develop programs to perform tasks in parallel on single, multi−core and distributed CPU's and GPU's
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module the learner should be able to:
LO1 Select, design, develop and implement testing strategies appropriate to games development
LO2 Evaluate methods for synchronising concurrent processes and assess effects of concurrency in specific domains, applied to games development and title execution environments
LO3 Design algorithms that execute on multiple processes with core or processor affinity
LO4 Develop functional programs that express the logic of a computation (without defining flow) and integrate into a digital game
LO5 Evaluate, select and program appropriate design patterns within digital games
Pre-requisite learning
Module Recommendations

This is prior learning (or a practical skill) that is recommended before enrolment in this module.

No recommendations listed
Incompatible Modules
These are modules which have learning outcomes that are too similar to the learning outcomes of this module.
No incompatible modules listed
Co-requisite Modules
No Co-requisite modules listed
Requirements
This is prior learning (or a practical skill) that is mandatory before enrolment in this module is allowed.
Game Engineering 1 or equivalent
 

Module Content & Assessment

Indicative Content
Testing
Continuous Testing, Unit Testing, Automated Testing, Testing Tools, Coverage Techniques (Graph, Logic, Partitioning), White versus Black box testing, Managing Testing
Concurrent programming
Processes and Threads, Microchip Architectures (multicore, NUMA, hUMA) , GPU Architectures (SIMD, SIMT) Mutual Exclusion (Mutex, Semaphore), APIs (Pthreads, OpenMP, MPI, OpenCL, CUDA) and implementations
Game Programming Patterns
Patterns in games development, pattern languages, examples and case studies.
Game Engine Architecture
Concepts and techniques utilised in implementing and using a game engine
Functional Programming
Definition, process creation, message passing, registering processes
Assessment Breakdown%
Continuous Assessment20.00%
Project20.00%
Practical20.00%
End of Module Formal Examination40.00%
Continuous Assessment
Assessment Type Assessment Description Outcome addressed % of total Assessment Date
Written Report Reading and criticism of industry/academic papers. Personal research/educational essay writing 1,2,3,4,5 20.00 Every Week
Project
Assessment Type Assessment Description Outcome addressed % of total Assessment Date
Project Complete a project which includes games programming patterns and concurrency 2,5 20.00 Sem 1 End
Practical
Assessment Type Assessment Description Outcome addressed % of total Assessment Date
Practical/Skills Evaluation Complete a series of module practicals 1,3,4,5 20.00 Every Second Week
End of Module Formal Examination
Assessment Type Assessment Description Outcome addressed % of total Assessment Date
Formal Exam End of year exam 1,2,3,5 40.00 End-of-Semester

SETU Carlow Campus reserves the right to alter the nature and timings of assessment

 

Module Workload

Workload: Full Time
Workload Type Frequency Average Weekly Learner Workload
Lecture 30 Weeks per Stage 2.00
Laboratory 30 Weeks per Stage 2.00
Estimated Learner Hours 30 Weeks per Stage 3.00
Total Hours 210.00