I added a lot of content to this draft, and was unsure exactly what was appropriate to mention and what would not be suitable (either by being too simple or more relevant in my final dissertation), so I’m glad this was cleared up. Changes are also to be made to the overall structure of the proposal. Finally, I’ll attempt to reduce the number of references and leave some of them for my dissertation, as apparently half a dozen references would be a more suitable amount for a proposal. I think this reduction will largely occur naturally when I restructure the proposal, however.

Here’s the second outline draft, the finished proposal should be up within the next week.

Here’s my initial outline, which I am expanding on for our next meeting and will redraft into a complete proposal over Christmas.

We discussed a number of points, most of them common to each of our proposals. As well as this, Dr Ozveren gave further advice during his lecture on Thursday which will be addressed in my redraft.

• In terms of structure, “Motivation” deals with too many points and could become condescending to someone who is familiar with the topic. Splitting the proposal to deal with literature review under its own subheading will help to address this and to emphasise the research work which has taken place.
• The basic outline did not make it clear which points were taken or referencing literature and which were my own, obviously this is vital in the final proposal and as such should be demonstrated in the redraft.
• The section “Addressing the Question” might be better separated into “Issues”, “Methodology” and “Evaluation”
• The proposal should also include objectives and milestones, and optionally constraints, assumptions and risks.

Hey, sounds like a cool idea. Sounds like it might be quite a difficult project to undertake considering the need for multiple computers to be running the same simulation.

Although multiple computers will be used for the simulation, bear in mind that I can run both a server and several client nodes on one machine during implementation and to perform limited tests. I will need to make use of several computers to properly test the application, especially when it comes to networking and synchronisation issues, however hopefully this can be done in the evening, at home, or when the labs are less busy.

Will you start from one computer and then work you up by having more join the simulation?

Partially. Obviously my aim would be to start with the simplest working solution possible, and build from there in several steps:

1. Experiment with multi-threading techniques within a single application.
2. Experiment with networking between several machines.
3. Combine these approaches to create a very simple client-server framework for distributing tasks.
4. Design and build a simple basis for the simulation on top of this – get characters being processed on multiple machines.
5. Expand on the simulation and improve the underlying architecture.

Or will there be a minimum to start with and also maybe a maximum?

The number of machines which will be useful for the simulation will depend on how complicated the processing required is – for example how many entities are created. If the project is successful the simulation should run, albeit slowly, on one machine and faster as the work is distributed over multiple machines, limited by Amdahl’s law. I doubt I will achieve this ideal and the research question can still be answered even if the simulation runs slower in a distributed situation.

I take it the actions performed will just be general tasks such as moving place to place, interacting with other characters or objects, etc?

I am still deciding, to some extent, what tasks would be performed. It is important that more than one task or is handled as this creates a different type of simulation from performing an identical process on each piece of data (character).
My initial plan is to have the character choose a point in a simple 2D city to aim to go to, and then have them navigate there. Next, collisions with other data (characters) could be considered, greatly increasing the complexity of the situation. Finally, the characters could perform simple interactions with items in the world or other characters; However, I think it is unlikely I will have time to implement this option.

Will these action just be randomly assigned to any computer as long as they are free to do so?

This is a major part of what I will be investigating. Tasks will most likely be assigned to nodes spatially – in terms of an area of a 2D map, although other methods will be tested. I would especially like to try partitioning the world based on the density of characters in an area in order to try and create even workloads for different machines.

Or will certain task that may need more processing power be sent to the computer with the best processing power?

This will really depend on the hardware I have available. Ideally, I would like to measure each node’s networking and processing performance and base the amount of work distributed on this. If it is possible to use my laptop on the uni network then there will be more opportunities here than if I am working with identical lab machines. It might also be possible to simulate different hardware using virtual machines.

Thanks again for the questions!

Also, feel free to use this thread for a bit of self promotion and link to your own CV – I’d be happy to return the favour and read over it.

Edit:
Updated the CV version.
Again.