by the game is executed directly by the hardware

Alright, let’s talk about this game stuff, you know, how them computer thingamajigs make the games run. I ain’t no fancy expert or nothin’, but I can tell ya a thing or two in my own way.

So, what makes a game, a game? It’s all this code, they say. Code is like a bunch of instructions, telling the computer what to do. Like, move this fella on the screen, make that thing explode, you get the picture. They got all sorts of fancy words for it, like “algorithms” and “machine language”. Don’t ask me what that means, it just makes the game work, that’s all I know. You know, like when you tell your dog to sit, that’s an instruction. Code is just telling the computer what to do, like a bunch of “sits” and “stays” but for the game.

Now, this code, it gotta be somethin’ the computer understands. They call it “native code” sometimes. Means the computer can just do what the code says right away, no messing around. Think of it like this: if you tell me to go fetch some water, I understand ya right off. But if you start speaking some foreign tongue, I’m gonna be staring at you like a cow at a new gate. The computer’s the same, it needs the instructions in a language it gets, and that’s the native code.

Then there’s this thing called the “hardware.” That’s the actual stuff you can touch, you know, the computer box, the screen, the clicky thing you use to move stuff around… the mouse, they call it. The code, it tells the hardware what to do. It’s like the brains telling the hands to pick up a cup. The code is the brains, the hardware is the hands.

• The Brains: That’s the code and all that program stuff. Tells everything what to do.
• The Hands: That’s your computer, the screen, and all the bits you can touch. Does what the brains tell it.

Sometimes the code can’t talk to the hardware directly. It needs a go-between, like a translator. That’s where this “operating system” comes in. You know, like Windows or whatever them youngsters use these days. The operating system is like the middleman. It takes instructions from the game and tells the hardware what to do. It’s like if you tell me to go talk to the mayor. I might not understand how to talk to the mayor directly, so I might go to his secretary, and the secretary will tell the mayor what I said. The operating system, is that secretary in this story.

Now, for some fancy stuff, like making the game look pretty, they got this thing called a “GPU.” It’s some kind of special chip, they say. It handles all the pictures and colors and makes everything look real nice. And it works real fast. I don’t really know how it does it, but it makes the games look good, so that’s all that matters.

And at the very heart of it all, they say there’s a “game loop”. It’s like the engine of the game, keepin’ everything runnin’. It’s always checkin’ what you’re doin’, updatin’ the game, and makin’ sure everything happens when it should. You push a button, the game loop makes the fella on the screen jump. It’s like the heart beatin’ in your chest, keepin’ everything movin’. If the game loop stops, the game stops.

So yeah, that’s how I see it. Games are just a bunch of instructions, written in a way the computer understands, telling the hardware what to do. And it all happens real fast, so fast you don’t even see it. It’s like magic, but it ain’t really magic, it’s just a whole lot of smart folks figurin’ out how to make these machines do what they want. And that, my friend, is how the game is executed directly by the hardware… or somethin’ like that.

Remember, it’s all about instructions. The game tells the computer what to do, and the computer does it. Simple as that. Just like tellin’ a kid to go wash his hands before supper.

Tags: [game development, hardware, software, native code, operating system, GPU, game loop, computer instructions, machine language, algorithms]