.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=480&h=270&dpr=1.5)
Electronic Arts appears to be working on a new type of render technology that would use spatial partitioning to offset and reduce the gaming devices' hardware load. The popular game publisher and developer has submitted a great number of key patent listings over the course of 2022, with some of them having the potential to substantially improve EA's games across the board, though it goes without saying that it takes time for a patented solution to be fully developed.
Namely, Electronic Arts is dedicated to staying on the cutting edge of the video game industry, and its R&D departments have come up with a number of interesting features that the company ended up patenting as a result. From hacking countermeasures all the way to input lag alleviation systems, 2022 has been particularly interesting when it comes to EA's patent submissions, and the latest listing is no different.
Coming just a few months after EA patented its input delay compensation feature, the company is now seemingly looking at ways to revolutionize real-time graphics rendering by compartmentalizing the hardware's visualization load. Its latest patent submission leverages the method of spatial partitioning to divide the game world into disparate zones, each of which is subsequently easier to load and render in real-time since the hardware in question no longer needs to deal with the entire game world all at once. The description specifies that this would be accomplished through the use of dynamic reverse tree generation, letting the PC or console know what needs to be loaded at a given moment in time.
.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=500&dpr=1.5)
By using spatial partitioning, EA's development teams could, hypothetically, create massive sandbox games such as the stylish Need for Speed Unbound without overburdening PCs and consoles. In turn, this could lead to bigger and more complex game worlds or, perhaps, substantial visual improvements, depending on the developers' preference. Of course, the exact extent of these optimizations remains yet to be seen in a practical implementation.
It's not hard to imagine that spatial partitioning could also be used for games such as the Dead Space Remake to further improve the players' immersion throughout the experience. Players could perhaps get even fewer loading screens and fewer distractions from the gameplay, though it's worth pointing out that the upcoming remake of Dead Space has seamless loading already.
EA recently patented a new fraud detection system, too, which posits a new way of clamping down on cheaters and other malicious elements in games. The company has been as forward-thinking as ever over the course of 2022, though it's always worth pointing out that a patent listing doesn't necessarily mean something will definitely materialize out of the submission. It remains to be seen how EA ends up using these features, and it could very well take years for the company's developers to begin implementing them at a regular pace.