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Posted by Jaso1024 2 days ago

Show HN: A game where you build a GPU(jaso1024.com)
Thought the resources for GPU arch were lacking, so here we are
951 points | 185 commentspage 6
BuildItBusk 2 days ago|
This is amazing. There are a few quirks here and there, but the idea is great and it's super fun to play around in.
schlecht_ 2 days ago||
Love it, thanks! Would you mind making it possible for me to see my "circuit" after running the tests? Currently, I can't go back to the circuit I created.
Jaso1024 2 days ago||
Sure, you should be able to rn though, is this after completing the level (wanna fix this bug)?
schlecht_ 2 days ago||
Sure, but I can't seem to find the git?
Jaso1024 2 days ago||
I haven't pushed to github (Will do this soon), but I believe that i've fixed the issue (also, by wanna fix this bug I meant I want to fix this bug, (but would def also appreciate help if ur interested, the mechanics of this game ended up being a bit more complex than I initially envisioned lol))
schlecht_ 2 days ago||
No problem. I am currently on the third level I think and my laptop fan ramps up, so I closed the tab and it stopped. Also, how can I delete e.g. transistors again?
Jaso1024 2 days ago||
I see, I'll try to reduce the load, i'm using canvas 2d so that could be causing it. you can delete by selecting then pressing the delete button (will also allow right click to delete in the next push, since i do this for wires)
Jaso1024 2 days ago||
Fixed!
arikrahman 2 days ago||
Awesome project! Reminds me of Turing Complete on Steam.
Jaso1024 2 days ago|
Yeah, that was the inspiration, felt that it didn't go in depth enough + didn't cover other processors, so I wanted to fill that hole + make it free
khedoros1 2 days ago||
The aspect that I especially like is covering the 3-state aspect of the logic. Studying CS, it was kind of vaguely mentioned, and we skipped over to doing logic diagrams with gates and the assumption of 2-state logic really quickly...and it seems like most games do that kind of skip too. Working at the transistor level grounds it better to the actual components.
dauertewigkeit 1 day ago||
I really like the game as a concept, and I got pretty far already, level 2.16, but I feel like some levels aren't making much sense at all in terms of the goal and how the passing circuit fulfills the objective. The Latch and some others had me puzzled. Because it is clearly vibecoded I feel like I cannot really trust the educational material all that much and at times it's not clear if I am misundestanding something or if is just nonsensical LLM slop.
ampedcast 2 days ago||
It is really interesting. No authentication to save the level so that you can continue next time.
jmholla 2 days ago||
The continue buttons in intro break for me all the time on Firefox. I can't actually finish most of them.
Jaso1024 2 days ago|
fixed!
jmholla 2 days ago||
I've made it through about the first ten parts of section 2. Some additional feedback I've put together:

* Sometimes explanations are overly lacking, other times they get repetitive. This feels like it needs to be accompanied by a course to fully deliver value. For instance, we're kind of thrown into truth gates without having really gone over them. And understanding how to combine NMOS and PMOS gates could use a better intro. Once I knew the answers, I got my brain to reset to my VLSI course from college, but I think a better primer could've accomplished that. In other places, I feel like we get more refreshers on some components than others.

* The routing algorithm needs to be better. I get a lot of staircase wires and straight up overlaps.

* Right clicking should clear attempted connections.

* There should be away to delete components you've placed. Maybe I just couldn't figure it out.

* I think icons should be included on the components pane. I kept clicking NOR when I wanted NOT and a better visual cue would have helped.

* It feels like difficulty is all over the place. Perhaps this is corrected with better explanations, but creating the NAND gates and NOR gates were much more difficult compared to AND and OR. Perhaps actually having us construct those gates without NOT would change the difficulty curve.

* The success overlay shows up too fast. Especially on levels that are just a demonstration (like the NMOS and PMOS Again levels) you don't get to to see everything the level is trying to demonstrate before the level announces that you have succeeded.

* In the intros, when there are new components, their description pops in. Instead, it should just advance like a slide. It's very jarring.

* Also, it's unclear that those aren't part of the intro. Maybe instead of popping them up, flash the little information icon next to them.

* What you call a capacitor I believe is actually a combination of a transistor and a capacitor. I think people will be hard pressed to find documentation on a capacitor with an enable switch. But, then you use this same capacitor to form a 1T1C cell. I'm rather confused.

* Many times when I finished a level, the circuit would switch to a prior level's solution.

* Some components have the same letters for every terminal (e.g. half-adders), meaning you need to scroll over the terminals to know what they do.

* Some levels have many test cases, and there's now way to see them all.

* Level 2.3 talks about us having registers, but we never covered those. In fact, I think we're still a ways away since we need to get from switches to flip-flops then to registers.

There isn't much order to this. Just what I recorded while working through it. Overall it's pretty good, I just think polish would got quite a ways.

Thank you for sharing this! I'm really excited to get to the more GPU specific parts. I basically did this for CPUs in college and I'm excited to see what preconception and missing conceptions I have for GPUs.

Jaso1024 2 days ago||
Thanks for all the feedback! I've fixed some of these issues (e.g., capacitor levels, switching back to prior levels upon finishing / refreshing, deletion (theres a sign when you hover a component now)), but many of them i'll be fixing today.

I'll be uploading arcs 3 and 4 soon (which will be programming the CPU and the start of GPU arch soon (people have gone through arcs 1 and 2 slightly faster than I expected)

anderskaseorg 2 days ago||
The “next level” button takes you to the next level even if you haven’t solved that level’s prerequisites.
Jaso1024 2 days ago|
Thanks for telling me, just pushed a fix
Falell 2 days ago||
Fun. 2.2 loads a blank screen for me, all previous levels were fine and 2.3 loads. Windows, Firefox 149.

Edit: Confirmed fixed.

Jaso1024 2 days ago|
Fixed! If you go to the level and refresh (might need to hard refresh: Ctrl + Shift + R) it should load properly now
unvalley 1 day ago||
Great concept! Multi language support maybe good for spreading.
kongchu2 2 days ago|
Soooo cool! I will keep try this
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